Don’t talk to me about being alone.
“Fretless,” R.E.M.
I may have been a lousy painter, but what a collector I turned out to be!
Bluebeard, Kurt Vonnegut
when i fell
in love with you
the gods & faeries
with their miracles & dust
never showed me
the whole picture
i’ve glimpsed it now
well after the fact of us
a giant mural hidden in the barn
at the end of a novel
•
in this smoldering aftermath
the calculations do not add up
to any other possibility
as if free will matters to a heart
because except for the end
i would not have it any other way
the truth of a detailed painting
fixing everything right there to behold
exposes the sincerity of a relinquished heart
in the body of a frail & flawed being
hollowed out by the inevitable subtraction
of the human clock we couldn’t stop if we tried
•
i am walking across a parking lot
where years ago you yelled at me
“Hey, old man!” standing with your mother
who apologized embarrassed by your rudeness
all of us then were unwilling to tell the truth
to ourselves or anyone else especially in a parking lot
now when all those truths have been buried again
i pause listening before i look over my shoulder
just in case
•
i hold on
tight enough not to let go
loose enough not to strangle
now a patient monk
tracing the images i designed carelessly
conjuring tomorrow today on our yesterday carefully
meditation at last
on all the ways i could not handle before
blinded by your miracles & blinded by your dust
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