On the Way back

A blood-thin woman wielding metaphors, 

deep in her cul-de-sac of everywhere

invited me to come stay the weekend.

Sleeping down the hours, I arrived,

dazed against the air pressing in.

Afraid of her northern ice, unfreezing

Relics in her warm house, book-brimmed

sensibilities of screened-in porch

and moths, cicadas yet to come.

And so-- and so-- she said, paused

whatever is the word that brought down

worlds, whirlwind inside the thought, 

Why are we so serious? Ice cream

shouldn’t be this way, two-three

days long, one shared dream shortened

Into telling, hours sitting and you

-- she understood the bleeding, 

fed off long-lost pieces of the same, 

A wild fur hat rotting somewhere 

in Sylvie’s room, that doll that looks

forever, wooden eyes like hers and 

Yours, matching the painting and here

is my leather jacket, did you ever wear

it with wine in Paris?  Dress around 

Dollhouses, Champs Elysées, those lights

and guest-bathroom watercolor in

latent steam, someone else’s soap, 

Not my mother’s house, not my mother, 

hers long-gone always, mine never she, 

Who are we? Stage set delicate on the square, 

These characters forget roles, roll their 

buttered eyes, yes it was too easy but, 

but full-moon nightmares every night, 

Characters from another dream, screen-lives

pressed up against reality: Sweet potbelly-man

who can fix a car, glimmering eyes and all.

But where is he, I ask, tears behind the question, 

Heaving, how can they always leave? He

And I, we slept fast in knots on trains, 

I woke up to find the seat a void beside me, 

avoiding eyes of others, together, but she says

You didn’t do anything wrong, you didn’t

do anything wrong.  So why, I ask her, am I 

alone again, if that is what this means, 

And elsewhere I am comforted by her past my

Future solitude and nieces and tea, a house,

Some lovers, none him, all distances, these

travels, these words at the end of it, sentenced.