Martinmas Week
Right before we got to the new sukkah on Lincoln
Everything went flat
So I turned about, threw my jacket over you and took you under my left arm
Losing the vision of Hillsborough Bay
of the external bay
We walked across the sidewalk slabs
All slightly ajar
Their various orientations affected ever so gently
By time and forces
The slightest mismatches of alignment
Revealing phalanxes of entry
And I became like a bear going resolutely into his cave
What would have once been anger in me
Had been subsumed
Into a kind of resignation
Opened onto the plain of joy
I sometimes wonder when I see a man wandering alone
Having a conversation with himself
Is this madness or is this just a human modality
That of generating an other when no other is there?
I felt the fact of your presence in my wrist and upper arm
The sting that revealed to me I was not alone
And the sound of you became the music of our mutuality
The cadence of your broken potential
The struggles of your exhalations
The chafing of rubber on rubber
Of a once buoyant intestine
And the rhythm of the wheel
Marked out a secret moment half way between All Saint's and Saint Martin's
I treasured your weakness and it became my own
And your broken breath on the cool air
Awakened my heart
We looked out over mini-vistas of imported grass
Over the signs of politics and real estate
Over expressive mail box housings
Old plastic hummingbird feeders
Rotting jack-O-lanterns
And faded American flags
Your balance against mine
Achieved a kind of synthesis
A new energy that had not existed before
Others passed by us
Cautiously or indifferent
Or looked curiously up
From front porches or windows at stop lights
We passed by a stack of tires covered in a vinyl sheath
And a grinding electric bubble machine that was low on soap
Others were racing by
Others were selling things
And I knew our story
The one without destination or prize
Could never fully be told
Without the stamp of madness on it