The allure of distance. Something beyond reach I can never know. Trains rumbling over rust outside my window. Engines startled into going nowhere fast. How long
have I been here, listening? What songs remain possible to sing? Ant hills and galaxies are assembled every day. But the mind is slow to catch up.
It is busy determining itself in the mirror of its name. How quickly it forgets even that when, rushing off into the horizon
Hollow out the rooms. Compress every detail into boxes locked in permanent ink: kitchen, bedroom, handle with care, fragile. It takes awhile. Even after settling the dust that licked our letters. The sediment of sentiment that adorned our dreams. The sigh sagging from your mouth. The key in the clumsy crook. How hard we tried to make a dwelling. Something of ourselves in the brief breath of what we knew to be our lives. The air remains still to be breathed. Remember the floorboards who took you in. How every step managed to impress them. Those who would not forget.
It’s you and me standing on the edge between two subway cars riding the seven line hands holding the rails facing each other on our way to a Mets game our faces are pressed into the afternoon hair waving watching the city pass us by with smiles unsure what the next stop is happy not knowing where the cops are stationed since we are committed to acts of violence against deadened hearts; our eyes catch the gaze of children moving the opposite direction we are role models in our histrionic display of true affection now you’re screaming fair play every strike every swing I’m in your line of fire even the moths don’t know the difference between the stadium lights that frame our smiles and the rising flame between a home run and a kiss what was once a bubble is now the whole of the crowd this game is us swinging keeping time at bay
You got a new car: a 20 25 Tacoma. It’s practical you said: look at the 6 by 7 truck bed! Sure 23 miles to the gallon isn’t great but who’s counting? You are I guess when you laugh and tell me it’s your last car—consider the commute times the distances you drive now which don’t add up to be much since work is closer to you than I am here across the country—I get it, I said, it’s practical
He starts with with his height: six foot something (as if he didn’t know) which is in fact bigger than mine. We’ve talked about this (my tendency to self-compare) but look at how close he is to the magnolias from up there. Now he’s a poet too. He sees what I see only once it’s fallen to the ground, making a mess of things like I do, often without a sound. The inches added won’t bring me closer to anyone (my parents on Magnolia street for example) or anything. But he assures me that Spring has a petal for everyone. Maybe it is all mission, like Rilke said. Minor probable disasters waiting everywhere to blossom. Even here within this mess, a menage that houses things I have yet to confess, flowers that need only a vase (and the slobberiest part of my kiss)
There’s a chance this works: Meaning the odds are in our favor: Meaning I’ll do better next time. Arguments will be concluded, calls answered, the dog fed even without your constant reminders. Romance will be back in vogue. I’ll even read the Roy and Howe you hold so close to your heart just to have something to say when you walk through the door.
You misunderstand: it’s impossible. We’d have to try over and over again before a conclusion can be made. That’s how we’d know for sure. Besides: the evidence is weak. Meaning: the boxes are packed: Meaning: my arms are slumped like a broken slinky and will remain so. I’ve learned who you are. And I am stuck in my ways.
Twiggy spider on my yoga mat thank you for undoing the past hour of self folding and holding with your unannounced appearance. I know you’ve been watching and have suggestions for how I carry my body. After all I have a thousand times the neurons and only a fraction of your intention and grace. You walk on eight stilettos and still men like me chase beauty and women and forget you exist. But we get each other. We’re foreign to ourselves but not strangers. We give birth and die. And in the in-between we weave and cradle worlds with our extremities. We might even for a second acknowledge the other in passing: I a moving mountain, You a pebble who has seen it all from your small corner of the world.
How beautiful it is that landlocked bodies of water will find their way to the ocean through crevasses no one else can see. That something as light as wind can carry the heaviness of traveled waves for miles through miles of emptiness and longing to distant shorelines where at last they may find a witness to their journey.
There goes the body again trying to find answers where only questions exist.
Where do we go from here? Why does hope feel so heavy? Who am I without love and direction?
Rilke said to live the questions, as if by following the curves
of their bodies you would be led to the full-stop of your life.
Of course, everyone has their answers and I am still here
writing of curves and bodies. Such is life they say. Did Rilke live his?