all day i can pretend i am not lonely. all day i can fathom a catalog
of gadgets & twine, money for milk, crumbs made of plum wine & flint.
all day i can hope for a hoopla i don’t really want.
i don’t want anything, really.
just ants, maybe. to watch, to carry away things i don’t really, acutely need
—to consume them.
a pile of dirt, which was bones
a century ago, maybe a few blackbirds & parts of a few trees—long twigs,
pods, root balls & fronds—
a mouthful of feather, after, like anything else, it has passed
through the body & changed.
it is simple. like holding a man’s hand.
like placing my body inside his—
but i wouldn’t call it that. or placing myself inside one of his shadows, behind his eyes, near the root of all gratitude, what he loves
& thanks God for & is satisfied with...
yes, wishes. yeah, horses—
because nothing is simple.
because nothing really holds still.
unless it is Always, which is the swell inside the backbone that whistles
every time we return to places we loved—well,
i miss my old life. i miss it. sometimes, i stand by my door,
holding my mouth in my hand, wishing
for someone to come by—
but it is not so simple. as missing someone I once looked forward to,
or pressing my beard
into his mouth: see how I’ve changed. look at my arms now. my eyes—
all of life is like this:
two skins or three—grazing—pressure, friction, horizon
lit & unlit & lit, again.