2:45 Dismissal

You were not expecting
me: you blinked
and looked again
as though perhaps
my image
had only flitted through
your mind
for an instant.

Then you came
stumbling into that half-light,
words tumbling,
uncensored still,
awkward still,
like no time
had passed. Fearful,
because time had passed.

A man your age should know
you don’t just let things die.
A man your age should know.

The changeling knows
it will never belong. It knows
it is far from home. It knows
at any moment, the ground
could swallow it whole.
It does not expect
a welcome. But
you took its terror
without being asked.

You took a step
toward me. I backed away,
hands flat against metal lockers.
Eyes confirmed then:
the conversation was finished

(though we kept talking,
though you recited my last letter
like you were being graded,
though you came back out
to stare after me
when you thought I had gone).

2003

(I’m gathering all my writing into one place.  You’ll be seeing more stuff that’s been published elsewhere, as I get to it.)

East

On dark country roads the stars shine

onto my head, the smell of wet earth

enters through open windows

while I fly out,

gliding  just above the open space,

and the sound is wide, smooth ribbon.

An ice age thaws

while empires burn down,

the beginning and

the end,

and I’m home.

The Early Show

I know why you were there
your blue shirt
and awkward graying hair
said almost as much
as the wall of silence
you wore, and
the waves of fear
that rippled out
away from you,
stony, careful.

I could hear you
preparing your reasons
for the leaders
of an inquisition
that would not come.

Leaning away
from my friends
I watched it unravel
my purple scarf
winding around
my neck,
wrapping around
my hands,
bandages.

Slumped down,
I wept as
each page turned,
snapshots: the phone call,
the confusion, the deliberate
look, the clumsy
weakness, the need
a gaping hole.

Someone’s
water bottle squeaked.
I turned and
cowered: thirsty strangers
were drinking me in,
ants wading through
discarded meat.

When it was over
you stood
on the steps,
staring at the picture
a look like no oxygen,
implosion,
that shame.

You struggled against
the tremendous gust
of nothing
that forced its way back
inside of you, as it had
not done with me.
I wanted to tell you I knew:
to scare you, or maybe
to comfort you.
I wanted to ask you
if he’s sorry.

Subtext

There are people who do not say
I miss you; they listen
for smoke signals
in spaces others fill
with words. They recall
names and events,
they offer only
things you hadn’t the
courage to ask for.

I know when you’ve missed me:
you want to tell me
everything that’s happened
until you’re no longer
burdened
by the fence of
words between us.

2003

Downtime

I could subsist
on your breath alone;
unbeknownst
to you, I
devour it
late at night
or when
you are watching
television.
It is an entire
meal,
maybe two.
Violet’s gum has
nothing
on this
achingly perfect
concoction.

All of your ideas
pour in
like helium.
I rise and settle
more deeply.

2003