distance cannot touch
there had been poems growing in my head
like ivy--one leaf unfurling after another
each day, a new strand
each strand, a new verse
one went--
a vast white room within my chest
peopled by empty glasses
and there stopped. It was an image more than a poem, and never made it past that one little sprout.
another, I could walk down the street & add lines--
If I can't love you, I will love the world:
the dog who follows me 6 blocks home
an empty bottle like an obelisk on the sidewalk
the boy who eats french fries alone
(next line here, same manner, same form...)
but I'll never write these poems
they're gone from me now
along with that unshakeable melancholy,
the enveloping heaviness of being alone
Because after that horrible moment when my heart disappeared through a hole in my throat, after all the guilts he asked me to confront, after I had confronted them and owned them and admitted they were mine, he told me--I feel closer to you. That you take my insecurities and give back understanding foritifies your place in my heart.
I woke the next morning
wrapped in a shining, carbonated mist
golden like champagne, invisible like the hands of the sun.
Blankets up around my shoulders,
my breath up around my ears,
I was safe within my love
which, after all
distance cannot touch.