though I often wake to look, and find you:
and I find you in my drawers;
and I find you in spirit within songs;
and I find you taped to catacomb walls,
though my victories are never victories enough.
I am always prone to move,
to poking through the great, white sheet,
slit with two dark holes,
through which I see your eyes,
blinking and looking in different directions.
A month and you've become a ghost.
And though I am prone to be spooked,
and though I know there is no longer
a body to kiss and pursue,
something in me does not register.
At night I walk streets, searching.
A cigarette glimmers, a large group
of socialites walk the other way.
I watch them go, considering their number.
How could a voice swim in such a pool?
Some nights you are immeasurably small,
pinned up against a wide and white sky.
Nothing of your face feels familiar,
the mould of your mouth, a stranger:
and I feign indifference, and walk on by.
I assume by now you have met another
as I have met others.
Though their words are soft, or their presence
loud, or their legs drag across the floor, or
their hair makes my eyes close, or they stumble
around furniture, trembling with great idiocy.
Yes, though I have met, I cannot yet know
anyone, for there are too many at home
I have not let go.
Some nights you are the fountain:
not in it, clasping water in your palms,
but you are the whole, centre in stone,
where children give their wishes away.
And all the leaves of the trees will say your name,
and all the windows will blink their eyelids,
and my naked, thin wrists will wait in the night
for a hand that I hold no hope for.
For a month is gone, sad that I feel like new,
and elsewhere, they call you woman,
free to let fall your tresses, wear short dresses,
and free from those who wear my clothes.
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