Live Everything.
Taking with you about Rilke in the kitchen
I paste a frozen smile.
Because I want to pretend, with you
That it has all been Rilke
and the questions we both love.
And not the spinning down of your mind.
And not my stilted anger at your stubborn abandonment
and not your vapid eyes.
You are talking but it’s more like a flood
Of ideas that have been pent up
Behind bars, freed suddenly.
And you say,
“I love this idea. That I can live in the questions.”
And I say yes.
And when I leave, I want to sob
At the strangeness of it all
The way it feels to hear you talk:
Like I’m walking a tightrope
Like if I sneeze you’ll leave us again.
And how you can tease me with Rilke?
While we all stand wide eyed, wondering if this is real?
And, if it is, we will forget the other things?
And manage to live, with you, in the questions?
But I don’t cry. And I don’t say anything more about it.
Because I have spent years wishing you back
And it will take more than poetry to fix this.
I paste a frozen smile.
Because I want to pretend, with you
That it has all been Rilke
and the questions we both love.
And not the spinning down of your mind.
And not my stilted anger at your stubborn abandonment
and not your vapid eyes.
You are talking but it’s more like a flood
Of ideas that have been pent up
Behind bars, freed suddenly.
And you say,
“I love this idea. That I can live in the questions.”
And I say yes.
And when I leave, I want to sob
At the strangeness of it all
The way it feels to hear you talk:
Like I’m walking a tightrope
Like if I sneeze you’ll leave us again.
And how you can tease me with Rilke?
While we all stand wide eyed, wondering if this is real?
And, if it is, we will forget the other things?
And manage to live, with you, in the questions?
But I don’t cry. And I don’t say anything more about it.
Because I have spent years wishing you back
And it will take more than poetry to fix this.