june 19 2002

one night you came when i least expected you
when i was sure that it would not be your car in the drive,
your sleepy step at the door
rendered speechless-- but were you expecting something more?

lying in wait arms wrapping close, whispering things like You never knew
And for a moment i thought i heard It's all right, It's going to be, you see
but i know it was really me that whispered to you
your lips weren't even moving, but you know that too

the zeal of the poet, the painter, the lazy lines left behind--
i match your breaths, say, I know this is wrong
But still we watch the moon with wary eyes
And raise our bottles high (and even she knew why you wrote that song)

somewhere back there it seems you lost something
on the sleepy roads, the caves and divets well-lined
you've become someone new it seems, i don't understand
you're talking only in rhymes (and its not truth no something's lost)

but i loved you. yes, that's perfectly true
and i told you as much, too, and you rubbed it back in my face
as though it were salt in a wound. the empty nights, the beds
yawning like canyons, the unwashed carcass, the dull roar

trying to forget would be impossible. and so i simply wet my lips
with a tongue gone dry and let you
hold my hand, even just for a few hours
you didn't ask to be this lost, i know.

today it is all i can do to send you
taglines of poetry in the mail, to tuck love letters
beneath your windshield wipers. you are straying far
and there is no way for you to wind yourself into me once more,

no way for you to drag me along. today it is all i can do
to stand here calling, my heart in my mouth, hoping that soon you
awaken with a start, realize how far you have gone,
and find your own way home.