Of Rivers & Respiration
It's April & you're going home.
I'm breathing you
out into the night
as I watch you from upstairs,
after I gave you back
everything
I still could. I once took
you into me. Now, as you pass
under my balcony I'm looking
out into a rainy darkness just
cool enough not to be summer
yet, as the Merrimack sighs
contented & wet,
fills the air with fog.
I wonder what you're feeling--
do you now understand why
I smoke? How else could I
see, quantify, a sigh?
A poem? No--though
it swallowed my heart
every time you'd sneak
your arms around my hips,
it is a trite image not
a Speaking Occasion. Muted,
I could only blow that hope
into the air
& watch it hover around us.
I'll miss walking
you to your car
in a light mist,
how the river thickened
the air
as if it could convey
that lovesickness
of the departing--helpless
surrender that felt deep
& broad inside me, epic
even in those old
overblown roles
(departing, forsaken)
& the clichéd setting:
the dark being so much more
beautiful than a clear night.
A sigh of the flowing away, more than
love, more than hope,
& what swirls around me
tonight is quietly shattered
fragments of everything I
ever felt in my life--
all at once & puissant--
still hoping,
still worrying, a cloud
in the night air.
No comments:
Post a Comment