in my dream
he admits to being sad
and I reach up
and rub his back
as a fogged up window
the clouding returning
almost instantly
but comfort still
in the motion
the point not
to make it stop
we reach
his door and
we pause
I have not
been in since
I say
the sentence
unfinished and lingering
what do we do
with our sadness?
when I wake up
I am not sad exactly
more burdened
lightly with
the feeling of
knowing
of having
lived.
And thank god.
I have found my imperfections again.
And they are what make me human.
And I am so glad
I am human.
the lasagne looks almost indecent
in its insistence on abundance
oozing ricotta into the plastic tupperware
glaring at me
and writing this poem I am sure
this place never finished my sentences
but nothing is lost these days
everything is found the answer is laid out for you
without you knowing what question you were asking
(in all likelihood a different one)
why do I want to kill something.
the cleansing wave of destruction
an alternative to perpetual anxiety
and anger at things I cannot change,
I would take some abundance now.
I would take some, and then some more,
and then some more,
and then some
more.
i.
do you remember then?
those viennese mornings
light and airy in the living room
reading poems to each other
as if to wipe away the dust of sadness
that accumulates in sleep
to hear you laugh or better
to try, a thing I could not fail to fall in love with
showing someone you love something you love
feeling they may one day love it too
feeling they may already do
and us just two americans
as the austrian sunlight filtered in through the double paned windows
first cold then unbearably hot
the trams incessant on the street below after the midnight pause
and a poem like an anchor
a gift given at the same time to each other
a little thing
and life is made of little things.
ii.
now I wake from dreams of you
where we never quite kiss on the mouth
and my eyes half-open come to the daylight
hungry for the fantasy of your body
for the fantasy of your mind knowing reality
never has and will live up to this
the true knowing of the dream kiss.
iii.
and you want it to be you don't you?
you had asked me
looking back on that moment
I feel such full astonishment
even then I knew I was living
something.
And I stormed from the room and refused
to give you what you were asking for:
an admission of guilt
goaded out of me with jealousy
poking the bear that slept between us
that held us each in one heavy lidded paw.
vi.
there is no answer
but I think of you now
as I write a poem and now
that everything is broken
and will not be fixed and
yet amid the angles
the jutted body-like bones of broken limbs
the glinting of
little things.
