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You will forget everything we talked about when you sit down to speak with him. You will want to meet with him somewhere safe. Somewhere public. A park. A cafe. Remember, this is wrong. He’s smart. He knows how to remind you of the early days when you were in love. Even now, he’s a romantic. Talk to him, instead, in a parked car. At that rundown lot that used to be a gas
A thousand large wings; the tickings and tocksof a thousand small clocks; fifty sprung springson the dark dark sidewalk; sometimes, I say,it’s like padlocks tsking around their keys; burning sod; burning trees; burning knee sockscracking blackly on their pins; picture breeze, I say, when you’re dying to sleep; it pings your lips like pine shade; blood is not it; day-light
But sometimes waits for years to see it pass overheadmaybe it coasts elegant as a white boator rides loose and wild as gray hair torn from sleep,and when it disappearsthe same wind that pushes it from viewencourages the tree to say goodbye, leaves flashing like minnows—
I want to ride to the ridge where the West commencesAnd gaze at the moon till I lose my sensesAnd I can't look at hobbles and I can't stand fences—Cole Porter & Robert Fletcher, 1934I wade through water and I wade through mudEvery time I calm down it’s a bucket o’ blood—Dixie chain gang field holler…gone ballistic, not home but bloodon the range…—Wanda Coleman, American Sonnet
How much more will I sow and never eat? goes the idiot’s question. Which merits an idiot’s answer: how much time is there in the universe? You will miss most things, but it’s not your fault. Out there, the limit is light, and what you can see by it. Down here, pressure makes most of the ocean an X. But absence is different from loss. Most springs have not been taken, just