Flying Over Water

[carose59]

Flying Over Water



I have been back two months, fifteen days.


Yesterday, looking for something to wear in my real life,
       I put on the peach shirt I wore the last day I was with you.
              Just for a second I was back,
              hot
              and sweaty
              and lonely already
              in that empty dim little room that reminds me so much of
                                                               my grandmother's house.



       And then it was my bed I sat on, not yours.
              Back in my own life, without you.



It's fading                     I'm holding on too tight.
       I can no longer turn quickly
       and see myself back again;

Brooklyn no longer dances at the edge of my periphery.

And the dire admonitions to Write It All Down
                                                   echo like the voice of God.


       I should have Written It All Down.

              I should have

                     I should

                            Should

                            Should




                                    but





If I had composed every thought and moment into submission
knocked them to the page and held them there
could I feel the sweat from the subway on my face again?
Can prosaic words on paper spin gossamer truth?
(Mine only swirl when outlining illusion.)

If I caught one of the late-summer dragonflies strafing the cars outside
    pulled off his wings,
diagrammed his body,
in two months, fifteen days could he still buzz around my head
searching for a damsel?


Those days with you defy neat labels.
Even drooped and faded       they want to surf the air,
                       soar the breezes       fly til their wings are tattered.
Is there a way to say to a woman you like very much,
"No, I can't call you anymore,
(I love you)
I can't talk to you.
(I love you)

I'm sorry.
(I love you)

I am.
(I love you)



but your son talks to me in my head
and I don't know how to tell him to stop--

OK, I don't want to.  OK?  I don't want to)
and as long as he's there, the urge to tell you—
is so strong."


She doesn't want to hear that.


I don't want to say it.


and those are the only words in my head
when I hear her voice

so I don't call.


(And the not-calling is a torture in itself;
I want to hear her voice
                                       Oh, God, I need to hear her voice.

The memory of her lovenotes sears me.)


                             Today the eyes that saw the places you had been
                                                     the spaces your absence has left
      were replaced by fresh, new eyes that have seen nothing
                                                    do not know you
                                                 have not loved you.

                                        I saw life rewoven around emptiness;
                                               colors faded from tears and grief,
           but the fabric,
           made of love,
           is still so strong,
           holding fast and true.
                        And in the center, beloved, the place where
                                             you had been.

                     (This does nothing to explain the hole your void fills in me.
                       Have I just been waiting for you
                                                          —dreamlover—
                                                          —daemonlover—
                           for your shadow to flicker over me
                                                 and cover me with the wild scent of
                                                                 sex!drugs!&rocknroll!
                           for your heart to torch my heart?)

                                                                Well.
                                              My personal destruction has been quieter,
                                                                                                      more private,
                                                  but I know the seduction of euphoria,
                                                             the need to escape,
                                  even if means burning down the house.
                                         I know the beat of life that infects your hips
                                                the arson that lights your eyes
                                                the fever that stokes your voice.
                                                 I know.

                 Your fingerprints are smudged on my whole life now;
                              there is nothing of me that is not yours--
                                                             not the music I love,
                                                             not the words I say,
                                                             not the dreams
                                                                   I dream.
                                                         For better or worse,
                                                            I am stuck in you