Unrequited Loneliness (Songs from a Womb)
you slip
into the pocket
of a dream
next to a deck
of old cigarettes
bundled like golden
sycamores
the arm of your spectacles
dangling frames
of prior poise
when they were
fresh and focused
on the loose-fitting shirts
of the blacktop boys
bruising shoes
and crippling cans
deep into the evening
breathing heat
until the sweat kept
the cotton close to their
stretching flesh
you burn to see
the exploding seam
or better yet
lose the shirt altogether
and feast
on the stiffening limbs
of old friends
boughs in bow
slouching toward earth
with the weight
of the wait
not enough to break
only close enough
to separate
the grass stains
from the
ashes
the crushed carpet
of the cold hotel
was laid to heed
the heels of handsome men
but the sheets
so often abused
by foreign lovers’ rendezvous
in the books and the movies
seem to me
more often softened
by the anxious skin
of a solitary traveler
a sideways mother
nine hundred and sixty-seven miles
too far east
on the western mattress
Rachel said you called her
crying last night
your eighty-seventh day away
is that true?
I know it’s late
the girls are fine
asleep in our bed
I don’t need to ask
you don’t need to answer
the suggestion
alone
is enough
the flames in my mailbox
are the least of my worries
the embers and ashes
bring comforting light
the scalding tin
of the flimsy frame
guards my door
from unwanted hands
and those with fingers tough enough
to brave the blaze
make the mistake
only once
it’s a relief, really
all attempted correspondence
curbed
perfect words
preemptively cinderized
I imagine their loose letters
glued together
reduced to the very flakes
of their basic
units
like crispy worksheets
of stoic sentence diagrams
yes, the flames in my mailbox
are the least of my worries
the embers and ashes
bring comforting light
the bulbs in my bedroom
burn out in a hurry
but the flames in my mailbox
burn night
after
night
I arrive
later than expected
from a purgatorial fog
to the shell of a snow blown home
the only sign of prior heat
leaks from sleep
attention spent in smart wisps
through the pursed lips
of the slate-strangled vent
two floors up
a box-sprung Olympus
for the marbled Hera
in the foyer
the silence is a cerecloth
and the darkness a dram
against the cool tall corridor walls
I feel for the toggle
stooped in votive bow
to the burden of circuitry
swallowing dark
for the sake of
stillness
stillbirth
born still
yet still
life
for now
slouching against ignition
stubborn breaths
escape compelled
to cake the walls
with wet life
to purge the arched hall
with sweet beads
hoarding heat enough
to sweat back
the only path
and surge toward
the only
door