Now…
well, I don’t really know what I mean
by now. Press on it, it disappears.
Maybe a little welt later
when we can get out of these wet things.
I can see you need my help
and I yours.

Wish I wasn’t always this way.
It’d be nice to withstand a cup of tea.
and a good cry. Not to reassess
but to come into a clearing
to rust in pieces. Let the motion detectors
take five, maybe they’re defective anyway,
everything’s flying apart and they don’t
make a peep.

You there, I think I know you
or did once or someone who answered
to your name. We were inseparable
like two sides of a page on which was written
an argument against dust,
how everything becomes it.
Your brother, is he still wearing that hat,
the one with the wing? Is your father
still so angry? Is it still 1973
when I wasn’t getting anywhere
with my French? They’ve built
something else there now.
Where your rooms were.
Which were never locked.
Because you lost the key.

What was there to steal anyway?
Some salad makings. A lab report.
You ran across the stage pursued
by a scarf. They put scaffolding
around the church. You fussed with the f-stop
while rain made everything
seem made of silver dots.