151

You may never know it
but I've taken slips of paper
with all the things you've ever said to me
scribbled without haste

and scattered them like ashes
sprinkling them out car windows
tossing them into the wind

of everywhere I've been
since I first saw you at the restaurant
that's a movie theater now

150

I think if there weren't so many of you
the way you're standing would be something special.
You're not a thin man,
but you stand like a bird.
Who taught you to keep your knees together like that?

I don't know if I've seen it before,
but you're wearing the clothes that people wear
so no one really cares.

Today they saw a tightrope walker
and she walked it with her hands.

149

I sit by trees from your backyard that you sometimes bring to me
Paper leaves crumbling beneath my feet
I looks between boulders that look out to the sea
I see your city glow and dim but your city cannot see me

There might not be anyone there but you say there is so there must be
The water won't let me here the noises from across the sea,
the silent town where you say hello to neighbors,
and feel plants lean over and touch your leg

You wake up you brush your teeth
And even though there's no one who touches your hand each day
you say there is so there must be

I meet you in the ocean
You can see it from your window
When I try to tell you secrets you explain the sky to me
When you're not there I do not speak

You say you'd bring me back with you but you like me how I am
You're tired from voices but you have to go back
You say people wonder where you are

148

Well you woke up today and you were me.
And you didn't look up
at what you never stop seeing,
the lamp that told you it can always turn back on
so it's okay you can go to sleep.

And we probably came down the same streets,
but you came to dance to the fountain sounds
for people who came without pockets or bags.

Then you sit on the other end of the bench
to change your shoes
and pull out something to read.

147

You got a call when I was born,
answered the phone in your living room
with the musty vanilla carpet.
The same smell that's in your clothes.

Now we're sitting here
on the plastic covered sofa.
They left us for the kitchen,
where your legs won't go anymore.

Do you wish we'd spoken more?

How do you do?
Fine, thank you.

And voices in the kitchen swim away.

146

I could abandon this house,
full of furniture that you leaned on,
but my clothes remember you too

I don't want to get rid of them
I wish I wanted to get rid of you

145

The afternoon is funny in the way
that you can sit in it
under an umbrella
around the table in your backyard
telling your vacation stories
laughing at comments you'll soon forget

all the while knowing
the darkest winter will come
maybe in a few years
ad you'll be huddled in the snow
wondering who here hated you
enough for clouds to be covering the only moon

144

Glance at me
in a room of moving yelling bodies.
Decide, yeah, it's okay I'm here-
but you're not so sure about me anymore.
I'm making noise I'm on the floor,
I look around to see what I've done.

Then turn back into your circle,
remember what it is you do.

It's not your fault that you don't know
that time didn't make me this way
but just you, being alive.

That you were there
when I went on that trip
that I almost told you about.

143

I walked into
piles of book on my bed
so I curled up on the floor
clutching the blanket that hung off

Because what's there to do
when I want nothing from you
but to be able to stand on your stoop
ring your doorbell
and hear your shoes pound down the steps

142

Let's sit on the train
and decide the skinny lady's
coffee cup
says nothing about what she did
the first day she woke up
lying sideways across the bed,
knowing for sure the curtains were still closed
downstairs

So we can scratch our ankles
and skip to the comics
feeling heavy eyes around us,
and then never be seen again.