Hey, I don’t need her
except to look
at the way her mouth
moves around words
or at her hair and the shadow
of her shape
the way her skin
covers her and her
waist connects
her to her
and how she sits
right here like the first
woman on earth
and her fingers
touch things
and her legs go all the way
down to her feet
on the floor
that sort of thing
the floor that holds me up.

Hey, I don’t need her
but the air
when she’s in it
is possible to breathe
and I have a hunch
if she left me
water would dry
lights dim, the door close
that kind of thing
and I’d be a man
underground
for a long time
breathing through a tube.

Hey, I don’t need her
I could do it
wait like that, buried alive
not the first
dreaming of her face
so close to mine her breath
would steam my skin
that sort of thing
if I had to
for an eternity
for another chance

—————————————————————————————

Solitude

Now it’s only you
and your idea
of time alone
but time moves
slowly and sometimes
you shiver with it
or it heats your head
until your brain boils
and your idea
has disappeared
behind the chair
no one’s there
through the door
and whatever hope
you might have had
fled with the night
and the moon
that lit the table
where she kept her things
by the bed
empty of all but shadow
your breath
the sound of dogs
while you wait to see
what happens next.

——————————————————————————-

Ivan Karamazov

How do we measure
if we’ve killed the pig
well? One,
two, fifty?
The form is the leg,
steeple, song,
street or novel.
Ivan Karamazov
I’m familiar with your suffering.
When it’s quiet, pigeons
coo and dogs
bark, bells
ring above
the schoolyard gate.
Under my feet,
rock and concrete,
silver mines
and men. Once
I dropped a pebble
down a well, tilted
my ear toward the dark
to wait. What’s happened
since has been
not nearly so important.