Watermark

Snapshot 17 March 02010

This room, its comforts, soft
sheets, firm bed, the white
noise machine pretending
to be the sea -- one dog curled
at your feet, the other twitching
with her own nightmares
on her own bed -- ceiling fan
casting dust & air
on the Asian silk carpet.

The bed clothes are obstreperous.
They wrinkle & ball & refuse
to smooth themselves.
The better-than-a-man pillow
isn't. You fall, briefly, & walk
through narrow rainy streets.
Your cloak billows & clings
in all the wrong places.

This wrap, these streets,
this starless rain, all
a clumsy, incompetent lover
sucking & blowing
stalking you into dementia.
You wake. For a moment
you know who you are.
But the rope is cut
& you drift again.

The shutters permit the moon
to leak through. Books
on the shelves whisper,
pass notes back & forth,
each adding a cite, a line
until the final document
is impossible to decipher.

It makes no sense, even
the books don't know
which wrote what word,
what warning, what
admonition. The sea still
waves & washes.

The cat quietly enters,
sits and watches
as cats will do, before
deciding. She will wake you.
She will bring you back
to a bright morning
with clear, sharp boundaries
& obligations. You will
remember who you are.

2010 03 march snapshot poem

if i were to tell you
everything
bare twisted branches
against a graying sky

if i were to tell you
dreams thick
with familiar strangers
one of them always you

a few birch leaves
cling yellow to the tree
an empty red mailbox
a white black-tailed cat

the dog coughing
pawing at her mouth
her enlarged heart
still beating 

this to say
i could not tell you
everything even
in silence