When you leave for the third time / I drink pink wine and shuffle along // the hall we painted orange
First it was just the sun pulling us in slices toward the sky, / clinging soil, nitrogen and chlorophyll.
Though her finger can’t reach / she’s telling you be quiet / as if there’s a word for it
Without a riverbed you lean / feel your way through this dirt / as if it’s her voice you’re after
The past week was draining / I want to explain
Uneasy co-existence---
I might have acted as the violence of language / had commanded. With strike-speed struck /your saddled stick, eight inches balling in a fist, / your heart exploding.
Who doesn’t have sympathy for the door / Forever separating the out from the in, / The here from the wherever?
What window would be so kind / as this white wall, where soft focus // is a down pillow, where no wet eye reflects
You know him. He is the small man / hanging around the periphery. / He has straight white teeth / and a smile for you
