directional

dredging myself to look for desire, the only one i can find is the craving for sleep. but when i sleep i dream of writing, and when i write i dream of you.

i've so often accused you in (semi) jest of being a god, just because of the way my life arranges itself around you. it's a strange and tricky sort of path i'm walking, one that twists and turns and conspires to stay under my feet no matter where i step. i know where it leads, and that it is not possible to go faster or slower or differently.

hoarder

yes, i've been avoiding this, this putting words on pages, or letting them tumble too fluidly from my mouth: i am as possessive of you as ever, and as fearful of your evaporation.

that's wrong, of course: you yourself are as free as a feather (at least, i'm committed to that position) but i keep a tight grip on the ripples you make in me, a miser counting words and fingering memories, ordering and reordering emotions like an obsessive librarian.

wayward

1. i am lost today but do not try to find me; you will only delay me.

2. i have finally forgotten to notice what time it is in your part of the world: the calculation (still familiar and effortless) has ceased to be automatic. for good or ill i've decoupled my chronology from yours (watches are unsynchronized on my mark) and now for all i know you might be simply a few weeks further along in your work, while i've moved through years since the last time we were in alignment.

3. there is some kind of relativity at work here during which it would be unwise for us to touch, like trying to clasp hands with someone on a moving train while you're standing along the rail. our speeds are perilously different, our maps and timepieces useless to each other, or worse.

4. i am looking for one of those places that can only be discovered serendipitously, that can't be navigated towards. so your cartographer's instinct (all charts and compasses and bits of cloth to mark the path) only slows my progress, do you see?

Cold Comfort

She walks, stiffness giving way to numbness that makes it hard to keep upright. After the first few stumbles, she loses interest in picking herself back up, more and more difficult because her muscles aren’t obeying her commands very quickly, if at all. The snowdrift that looms abruptly in front of her looks cozy. Settling in, she finds that it is: cozy, the snow underneath the sparkling crystalline layer deep and insulating. It keeps out the movement of the wind, so she pulls it around herself; it cooperates, wrapping around her like arms, comforting, nestling her in, closer.

Read: thickjam.

sundries

did you know
there is money from your country
in a bowl by my front door
the same place where
i deposit guitar picks, mystery
keys and orphaned earrings.

there is probably six pounds
and change, plus another one
or two of your too-thick,
too-heavy coins in my purse
mixed in with parking-meter quarters.

i am not sure if i was keeping them
just because they reminded me
of you, or against some future visit
when i would need them again. but
i am thinking now of mailing them
back to you, or of taping them inside
the covers of school-library copies
of children's travel books so that they might
bring some delight to someone.

i have thought of dropping them
into fountains one at a time
but i do not think they’re legal
tender here even for wishes
though i believe they might work
where you are.
 

Homemade

Her face, set into a polite lack of interest, might have discouraged a lesser man, but he wasn’t one to change his mind at such a late date – he’d loved her since the day in second grade when they’d been assigned to feed the class hamster together, and found it cold and stiff in its nest. Not that she’d said anything kind when he’d cried, second-graders don’t, but it was the kind of shared experience that bonded you, he thought. [...]

Read: thickjam.
 

kodachrome

we are drawn in by those for whom life is uncomplicated

attracted by their pure colors and clear light

their unlabored-for knowledge.

we are delighted when they delight in us

putting on for awhile our thoughts and opinions

glittering, glowing from our attentions.

we are forgetful that we are, at best, an electrifying phase

at worst just a diversion that may possibly have

long-lasting effects

which we will not be there to see.

we are a photo in their mental wallet

they'll take it out now and then to look at

with pride     [  and a little wistfulness  ]

wondering what strange lands we are mapping;

they will never     [  ever  ]

come with us.