I was driving home this evening
Thinking of you.
Not about the surreal reality of you
Nurturing your father as he lay perishing
Before your eyes
Instead my mind selfishly wandered to the last moment
I held you in my arms.
I am thinking of the instant we touched
Just an instant.
And I am remiss to tell you
That pain is distal, and from time to time
It must flow through our tears
And wiggle into our skin
Weighing on our bosom.
You did not say it.
Don't go.
Stay.
Your body did.
And bodies never lie.
Only a mind can do that.
My heart raced
And I held onto you.
Not the way I wished for
Or stayed righteous for.
I was
And am
A man with too much pride
To have recognize the creature in my arms:
A dreamer
Holding a dreamer
Dreaming up the lies that waited for us
Under our beds and in our closets.
I'm facing the truth now.
And I say this, so that you will hear me then.
My marriage was failed.
Yet I held onto it as a fool.
Cherished it.
But–with a word or two
(If you had spoken them aloud)
I'd have faced the consequences
I'd have pressed you to that wall
The way your body whispered to me.
Take you down.
Fall to the floor in a heap.
Leaving this universe
Less, one forgotten wish:
To deny my hands
My arms
My chest
Your hips
And lips
And breath
And breasts
And legs coiled around me
And your nails in my skin
And the moisture of your mouth.
Do not tell me otherwise.
All of these poems and more can be found HERE in the anthology “A Cartographer”.