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Filed under: Poems, Uncategorized | Tags: flab, middle age, naivete, poetry
tenderness is never wasted
even on philistines
who seek to slaughter
unborn hope
like me
if I have taken away
without giving back
it is only because
I was trying to
teach you a lesson
that I have yet to learn
in the hope that
you would someday
break it to me gently
how could I have ever expected
that you would call my bluff
that I would wear the egg
long after it had hatched
and thus be so wrong
as to be right
for all the wrong reasons
a clinical example
of futility
how is it
that I think that
I can understand you
when I am just foaming
at the mouth
rabid in my belief
of right and wrong
when what passes between us
is so nuanced as to be indecipherable
when will it be enough
just to love and be loved
and not look for some other sign
that you are
who you think you are
it is the hour of the wolf
and I have been trotting the floor
but I will try the walls
making my way through a different
sort of vertigo
where the shadows don’t fall
at incident angles
where I must use my elbows
to steady my progress until
there are no shadows
there is no light
and I am moving blindly
rolling upside down
filled with a strangely familiar
nausea
my nose is running
my feet smell
and there is no longer time
for repeating the obvious
a texture in my mouth
as if eating wet cement
I cannot accept this
but here it is undeniably
as plain as the nose
on the back of my hand
