Reason

the door is behind you, you
reach to open it. it moves
towards you, opening, letting
in a trace of other places.
images enter, pictures of
other places. you find several
reasons. this one is yours.
you are speaking to me now.
your voice stops between rooms.
in the doorway there is an
echo. these are the reasons
you have found.

you step over the doorway
with adjectives in your hands.
an adjective is an unfair
weapon, it responds
to being thrown, words
move back and forth
through the open door.
you are moving now, slowly.
your image stays in
the first room and you
let it stay there. you take
your reasons with you and
squeeze your adjectives with
tense hands. the doorway is
yours, it belongs to you.
you have won this argument.

Exchange

I wanted you inside some
empty place in my belly-
You resisted, counting
numbers on me, telling me quit,
no, stop, away-
long lists of single words.
I asked you for wordlessness.

You spoke to me, panting,
of fears, of betrayal,
growths inside you
abolishing boundaries-
I said abolish them-
No, you said, they sustain me.
You asked for another list.

I mentioned merger, acquisition,
amalgamation. Those
words nourished you,
they seemed to satisfy.
No more concepts, I cried with tears.
I want your otherness.

Don't cry, don't cry, I
take you for granite, for stone,
you said, a pillar for my rest-
I reject category, I shouted
at you, join with me-
You wanted more definition.

Dream is the soul of art,
of creation, I mused-
Stop dreaming, you told me,
you seem like a child-
I made a fist- No symbols
you heartless beast. You asked
me for feeling then-
I saw in you nakedness.

The Question

would it be
right for me to weave
you into the pictures, past
and present, of acts
and embraces
I enjoyed, endured
before you came
along, place you
carefully to me,
the continuum
of time endures
in the act or in
my uncertain
memories. there are
things I know
no now and then of.
I fear
there's nothing new
for me, anymore. everything
echoes,
reminds me of the past
or future. even
something so simple
as a telephone
ringing lacks both novelty
and simple presentness.

and of the things
more complicated,
how am I to experience
these as new, as
something more
than a catalog of acts
and presences I've
never tried before?