Friday 21 December 2007

Forms of Joy

Transporting snails from the agate walk
one at a time to flowerbeds along the brick wall covered with leghorn ferns—
that was my last great love—
twisting my ear if I didn't listen,
and if I looked at another, holding me in a headlock:
a dream come true!
To see a sweet love fall:
wrong crowd: losing all lovely
to go into the storm again…
I miss the one others called crazy,
taking to drink, no home, no place to feel at home.
Suffering another taking you so young
and reliving it, beautifying the smoke of fireman rescue,
enshrining the diminutive vessel, offering
to be abandoned, taken.
No wonder we no longer long for anyone,
all the trials and conditional claims
cumulate in no one in particular—
but I'm still here! and enough of them now
to turn to now without calling
they bump into one another
in advertised illusions of remembering each other
—if not longing exactly—
magnifying possibilities
suspending the new ones and the latest movies
and criteria of shopping, dining, and more
so that the photos that really matter
seem from an earlier life
with the hairstyles and colognes all wrong.

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