I often misjudge the distance
between me and the world,

this morning the distance
was more like looking
through a keyhole
and seeing the
arrows wreckage,

a woman was walking
in front of me at the
university union
where oversized portraits
of past torchbearers and
victors hang grandiosely
on neat corn rows
like kings and queens
with branded jewels
we watched her fire storm
together - just me and the group,

she came through the peaceful
passageway that normally
reminds me of a quiet library
but not this time,
her pace quickened as she
disputed her case brashly
to her lover on her cell,
something about being seen
somewhere with someone  
so furious and unbending
and persuasive, out there
in a swirl, and I thought,
“****, why?” such chaos
and anger over an
appearance, over an
inquiry - over a nothing,
there was no autopsy
but she rambled onward
stomping her black spiny
pumps loudly on the marble
creating a demanding rap
it couldn’t wait
tossing her hair back violently
as if it were on fire
she stunk up the joint
with her, “no time for that,”
front,

the distance between me
and the world grew smaller
this morning,
I stopped to look at it
at her retching, it wasn’t
a fire and I did not
misread this,
what I felt there peering
through the key hole
tenderly reminded me
of my own adultery
with absent mindedness
and irrational fear
and messes that protest,
else they lay down under
lily-livered puppet strings
and bed springs.