1/17/2018

"the going into winter and never coming out."
-frank o'hara

the lights of nassau
***** and white
like raw pearl

shining down on my shoes
and
i, moldering and wicked,

sitting on bank steps.
you held your hand out for me
but i stood up by myself

this is how it happened
simply put, and no
metaphor.

you say to sit and talk
i know where talking is
red gravel i kick up like i had

before
and all i see in the cold and the dark:
your pupils, your hands

held out again
i would be dumb to take them
a month ago, dying for a lack of you

and now i try to catch time by its tail
but i can't
for time isn't an animal

it could have fooled me,
by the way it slinks and sidles
in the dark of the woods.

sitting in Anacostia,
on the phone with you,
dead roach on sidewalk

so long ago
back to reality:
you ask me if it's alright

and i say yes
i let anything happen to me
and everything happens to me.

i can not hold on to it
time is in the air
but what i can try to do is remember it.

*II*
my life is lived in the past
a life not worth living
a life not respected

there is nothing
i can do about this
i think, as i walk to my car.