i have traveled a long way
to be waiting in a cheap motel

passing time reading the words
of dead russian poets

waiting for you to arrive.

four am is especially bleak,
and no restless sleep is
as purely restless,

no sound
more angry forlorn and
temporary than cars on the
highway besides.

i would never know by your voice
filtered by space and electronics

what is moving through you.
i must look in to you.

so i wait now for you to knock,

alone in the company of
pasternak's tears

until i see you and understand you
are well.