I reconstruct the poem from the end. Then follow the dotted lines
to the first verse. It is not
of returning to life by a cardiac massage,
or write "we" where before saying "they",
or a deep look to surface as a bathysphere
. Is 1989 and run through the rain back to the hotel
. Elusive puddles and clenched teeth
under a sky dotted with electric lianas.
We are in London to which I have never returned
although I returned many times, and on the tenth floor
draw our faces on the white wall looking for the perfect shade
a
frame that gives meaning to your fingers when you enter without knocking
numb and I collapsed on a bed that mimics the movement
the world to join
shoulders like a suspension bridge. In one of your tapes
show up holding a towel. I close my eyes and laugh,
and extend an arm to a window, as if the night is metiese
one of my sleeves to surround the neck.
I am half naked but I feel covered.
pray for everything to stay the same for a long time,
an open book on another book that never ends.
can only pray and be prayed for twenty years, or eighty
when you tear inside
unimportant things too important,
and all you have are glands and enzymes,
an unshakable faith in future seasons,
in verse and metaphors as
enemy lines on a hand that still do not know to decipher.
reread the old poem, and the version now on
and understand that little has changed: the jugular
love will go on unchecked
after injury to the body hidden by then. _____________________________________________________
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