213

Everybody smiles ten years later
when they see each other in a city street

Pictures of the people who are important now
stashed in their wallets in their pockets in their
brown leather bags

Even you'll smile at me
then when I don't need it anymore

I look up when I hear the door,
but you just drop off your things and go back out it again.

212

You live at a rest stop along the highway.
No one watched your house
get built.

And the books about the people
who no one understands
are never about you.

At night the workers at the gas station
drive by on their way home
to their wives.

211

When I'm lucky I run into myself
on the street. She looks older in
different clothes from the ones
I fell asleep in.

She looks more or less like the others
on the street and her voice
doesn't ring in my ears.

I can't hear what she's thinking
and she stops to scratch her ankle with
the bottom of her other shoe.

The first thing when I wake up
where you've never been, I roll over
to the other side that's also mine.

210

When I got home in the morning
the lights were still on in the living room.
You car was in the driveway
and I've never seen a cab around here.

It's like you knew I hadn't brought you
wherever it was I went
the night before.

209

I don't say much when I come with you
to the supermarket but you
like it when I'm there and I
sometimes like it too

The bright lights off the yellow tiles
and sounds of only high pitched wheels

I guess it gets done faster when I'm pushing
the cart but then you stop
and laugh at the cover of a magazine.
A celebrity mugshot or something and I can see you
looking at me

208

Come with me under the leaves
of the trees on the mountains
you can see from the highway.

No one's going to tell us how to get there,
we'll just have to park the car
and walk.

There's no reason to go except
there's not reason to go
and that the people on the highway
are wondering what's in there.

207

After America nothing else
was left. You can discover
a handsome creek as you hike through the woods-
a quaint street fair in the town
that you were passing through. Your great grandmother's
immigration papers. A smile on a child.

But they took the last continent. The last secret
piece of earth. The rest of what was left
for us by whatever left us things.

So let's attach some wires and mix
some chemicals and see what happens
when we love our kids.

Take what we make and sit on a couch
with a map of the world and our
bodies and wonder where to look next.

206

Go on back to Michigan
where at least I don't have to see
the streets and fields and cornered houses
and markets and minds with pretty blouses

I've never been there, I'll never go.
Watch you in the walls that I collected
until I forget you like an old mosquito bite

205

We followed out bags into the dim lit
hotel room. Dropping thing
on the surfaces and checking the view-
a parking lot. Sleep now on the road in the morning.

A hard red armchair smells of the most basic
cleaning products. You say, I wonder who's
sat here before. Where do you think they are now?

I'm in bed. I won't look, I know
they don't think about being here.

204

Everywhere I go I'm in your room
You haven't come back since,
not even to sleep

I open the door and the rest of the house isn't there,
just white empty space past the wooden frame

And I lie in your bed, my head
resting where your shoulder was
and isn't anymore

So I run further, crossing oceans,
lying in fields miles wide

But still the sky sinks down to become
your ceiling and my arm
reaches for your silver watch
that you left on the night stand

203

All the things that don't happen-
a man riding a camel between the
strip malls where I get my food and soap,
the girl who never stays home at night hammering a roof,
you at my front door

And the things that do-
I walk from the train to my car

And the things that are-
the ivory globe on my bookshelf
your car in your driveway
street signs and traffic lights
and the freckle on your cheek

202

You've seen where I live
across from the school,
you used to drive me home sometimes.

Not far from you,
you just pass a few
main roads, the pond, the library and
the fire station.

And you've got a car, I know,
and I've told you when I'm home.

One day you, unexpectedly,
at my door in the afternoon
and then the sky starts dripping candle wax
while a boat surfaces on the road.

201

You read the newspapers
and see all the movies first
and every book I read
you gave away years ago.

But you fell asleep before the rain
and woke up after it dried

As I sat under a lamp
and listened to it
and you'll never know it was there.

200

People I know sometimes talk
to each other about how I never have
anyone over even though
my apartment is so close by.
I let you in

and the floor squeaked differently,
deeper, louder and I asked you
if you wanted to look around.
I thought I could show you my
record collection but you didn't answer me,
just scanned the hall then closed your eyes
and used my back to push closed
the front door.

199

You run your fingers down the bark of a tree
I feel it on my skin
and my back is stiff

You could bump over my ribs
like railroad tracks
and over the holes in my knees
the ones that I see
when I'm walking looking toward the ground

My face is whatever's behind me
when your face touches my shoulder

198

All day and night I drag along my single bed
dressed in a flowered comforter and a
ragged bookshelf and drawers with
dolls and pencils and some bracelets I made
as a kid at summer camp.

I drag it all on the rope
that was tied around my waste. Come inside,
see the books i never returned
the old music box and the stain on the rug.

Kiss my lips, then grab a few drawers and a
shelf or two. They won't feel so heavy to you.

197

You've never been in my head and I
didn't ever tell you everything
like why I didn't go to my aunt's funeral or everything
in my house I let him touch or what he said
and when he did

But when I'd see you the next day
for lunch at the deli between our
two houses with the
checkered table and the waiter who likes us,

you'd watch me knock around
the salt and pepper shakers as I
told you what I could

All I remember from when I was a kid
are the things I did
and never the things I thought.

196

There's an old man down the street
he sits in his garage in a picnic chair
hands gripping its arms

and although all day he watches
he won't quite look at you when you go by

go in through his back door
find a letter telling why
she left him and took the best
bottle of wine

walk by the next day
he's in a picnic chair
and he won't look at you

195

A mile of people
sitting lying elbows on their knees
babies on their laps
guitars on their straps

the ones closest to the road
just specks of color like a big quilt
to those on the other side

there's a city on the farm
and nobody speaks

watching a man on fire get down on his knees
"Nobody touch me"
as the drummer behind him slowly lifts his hands
and lets the air ring

194

Sky black, ground white.
The line between them sharp and flat.
It's a desert of sorts and the people walk in clans
carrying houses on their backs.

The day is just as black as night.
Ground so white it hurts their eyes.
The people walk toward the sky and don't get any closer.

A child will ask, why are we going?
and his hunched over mother will drop her bags
and take the tiny knife from his calloused hands

and say, someone lives in the dark and can't be seen,
but he tells us that someday if we keep walking,
we'll go to someplace where colors change
after a little while.

193

Touching mouths
dry throats
their hands reach behind them
for a telephone or a candle or a stairway banister

They know each other's faces but their eyes are closed.
So later when he takes her home
all she remembers is his cracked lips
her dry throat.

192

You were asleep hours ago
I've watched you from my desk across the room,
lamplit
in case I decide to use it.

I hold a pencil to my throat
I hate it when you go to sleep.
You do it so early
so when the sky gets heavy and the roof caves in
I hold it up with both my hands
over the bed where you lie still as the sea.

191

All you can do is whisper into my neck
I can't hear you over the falling town
I can't feel your breath

190

Between pages in books I read on the train
bites I take out of a peach
turns I make before I go to sleep

I watch us from behind a building
my umbrella rolling in the shiny sidewalk
the golden dog fur drooping with rain
your hand on a wall
your hand on my face

There on the corner
in between bites
my stomach drops

The umbrella the dog
your hand on the wall
the building I hid behind gets father and farther

189

No one moves into or leaves our town
Every wind blown leaf hits a wall at its edges
Words yelled in square kitchens
seep out from underneath front doors
into the rocky river.

And on the main road is a tree
with satin flowers tied to it
where his car wrapped around.
All the lovely people's cries
are engulfed by sticky air
and rain back down at the end of the day.

But they stay
for the winter when the words freeze with the river
and snow polishes the branches
and finds the crevices of pretend flowers
and the crisp dry air coats their heavy eyes.

188

Where shiny black suits
and muddy boats and overalls
meet, in the tundra
where both lose to the cold
can't lift their legs out of the snow

187

Sorry I can't leave New York
It's not because I grew up here-
I've seen enough cars parked in front
of identical houses to know
it's okay to go

It's the seasons
and how every summer every beautiful day
perfect for the beach but my mind blanks on names

I can think "at least the cold comes soon"
and when it does, everyone will be inside.

186

The checkered tables at the diner
stand unreplaced.
The one we always sat at
that would wobble every time you
put your elbows on it.
The same spiky haired waitress
who'll always talk about the government.

You're still the only one who knows
how I used to feel about my parents
and that in the middle of the night I used
to lie down in the middle of the road.

The shell you found me at the beach
would look just the way it did
if I took it out of the shoebox
in the middle of the stack.

185

The child who scolds the table leg
the way his father scolds him
one hand on the doorway
the other on his neck

184

Hello again,
you're stripped naked in his house
and he's not here.

I miss you when you used to think about God
until you might as well have been one
sitting up there on your cloud
deciding the fates of everyone who believed in you- who?

When did you hit the ground?
You floated down like a weak balloon.
It's happy here where everybody touches you
and all you have to think about is the fingers
on your neck.

183

Alaska changed when I got there
but I didn't

I let me go into the snow
and left me there and took me away.
So what, I'd never seen snow.
I'd never seen the inside
of the apartment upstairs, either,
until the lights went out and I needed
to borrow a candle.

I don't want to close my eyes
but otherwise I drip
onto everything I touch

182

Black silhouettes of humble trees lay flat
against the hazy sky.
Leaves in place,
moist summer air sticks to roofs of sleeping houses.
A newspaper page like a rock in the street.

It’s a stadium for the crickets
It’s a concert arena
They play a symphony for the trees

Marble clouds like fish
frozen in water hear

their crescendos and wave of tings
They’re dancing in their streets
They call to children in their crowds
They’re in mobs looting apartments
They’re throwing streamers making love

in leaves of steel.
And the street lights dim but never flicker
as the only car all night goes by
with its windows up.

181

some 1 pms
some lunch breakers meet
in the shady parts of parks
yelling questions
so short,
words so simple,

that no one knows to look in the back room of a bar
or a frozen cave a bird once flew over

world people time god life death why

they yell their questions to be heard
over all the others
different people each 1 pm
though some have come before
but no one knows who they are
having already been there
they feel no more experienced with the art
of pointing flashlights at the sky

180

One long road and a few turns away
they come down the carpeted stairs
pouring coffee as the sun rises
beside the jar they always filled with butterscotch.

I can't imagine it's there anymore,
I think it was just for me and I tried
a couple of times to visit in the afternoons.

The door's always open when I go by but I keep going.
They used to talk to him every day
over the fence between their backyards
so I lost them too so I keep going.

179

You lived in my neighborhood before
I did.
You already knew about the secret alleyway
and why Mrs. Lester has a brick wall around her yard-
I didn't even know that.

I can barely find my way out of your neighborhood.
The streets all curve and every house is the same
to me, except for yours.

Before I lived here you buried your baseball cap
in the park around the block that I walk by every day.
I don't think you think about it much anymore.

178

They left me all broken
on the edge of the stream,
half my face in the water.

Unable to move I decided
to believe in heaven again like I did
when I was a little kid.

No one's here to prove me wrong
and I've missed my parents lately-
they still seem alive enough to be somewhere waiting for me.

Lying face down in the wet rocks
will be much more bearable
if I'm up there or somewhere
being reminded of their faces.

177

Two soldiers
carrying all of the same things
guns canteens backpacks shells extra socks a bible

At night they swat at flies
as one describes his last night
with his girl describes until the Other
knows him better than she can
anymore just by the way he talks about her eyes

One soldier hid
in the thistle brush when they raided
the village with his rifle to his chest his knees
sinking into the ground while the Other
aimed steadily
making each bullet a kill

Because they want someday for all children
to come home from climbing trees
and for all the news the paper gives us
to be that everywhere is peace

176

I come home to tell you where I went that year
when I left you while you were showering, left no note.
When I came back you were in your armchair with a beer.

You hadn’t ever seen me with a beard.
I didn’t know whether to take off my coat.
I’d just come to tell you where I went that year.

I said hello loud enough so you could hear.
I thought you’d ask me why I never wrote.
You just sat in your armchair and offered me a beer.

Now every time I make my way back here,
The words wait like a marble in my throat.
I want to tell you where I went that year.

But now even to me it is unclear-
all I remember well is that deer on the side of the road.
So I just watch you in your armchair with your beer.

Sometimes when I’m home you talk about the pier,
how you used to take me out in your old boat.
When I came home to tell you where I went that year,
you just sat there in your armchair with a beer.

175

I'm sorry I didn't come to the wedding.
I bet your dress was beautiful.
I imagine the chatter in the lobby
of the hotel must have been pretty loud.

The day of your wedding I woke up early.
I made pancakes in the dark.
Then I sat on the tile floor with the plate on my lap.
I sat there until the sun burned by eyes.

Then when your wedding started I unplugged the phone,
so I could stop waiting for someone to call.
I wouldn't have picked up
but I thought someone might call.

Anyway I hope
you and your groom have a nice honeymoon.
I'll see you the next time
you take out a book.

174

It is winter. I am cooking and I don't
know where you are. And every time
I hear a car you still don't live
around here. I want to tell you
that I'm cooking your favorite soup.
I want to tell you that I'm on the roof
but you still don't live around here.

173

Everyone's saying it doesn't matter what they think
It's there in the books
and all the happy people's stories
of why they smile so much.

But every time I'm on the roof
and the only car that goes by won't see me,
I climb back through the window
and go back to sleep.

172

Behind my mother in her car
her hand would always reach for the song
by a woman with a voice like mountains.

Maybe the song was called mountains or
it was playing as we drove through mountains
but now I've learned to walk
and mountains sound like her.

It took my mother all her life to like that song.
From the back seat of her car I heard the mountains
where she'd been before.

171

There, in the places we forgot to put roads
are the ones who aren't born
who might have dug a hole in their backyards
or made a young girl cry into rubble of bedsheets
because he went to war
or she didn't go to class that day
or because she did

Now they sleep where they cook
and they stay in one place
in a clearing
in the woods
As we drive back because we forgot our keys
and let the phone ring because we know who it is
they live with each other without learning their names

170

My father clears his throat
and crosses his legs.
The wrinkles on his forehead pointed down

Only noise from his newspaper pages.
Still he doesn’t hear me ask to pass the bread

Sometimes he talks to himself
like I’m not in the next room

I put my plate in the bottom of the sink
and leave the house alone with him

When I get home he’ll be tossing
in his sleep,
the only place where he has to see

169

We came here alone and we’ll leave alone.
Our own voice the only one there ever was
the only one the cobblestones will listen to.

That’s when we own a world,
filled with only the buildings and the forests we’ve seen

and we made everything.
Each swollen brick reminds us of our own fatigue.
Each hanging gutter of our own mistakes.

We never know what happened to that childhood friend-
could’ve had four daughters and a dog.
Now them and the lovers and the mothers who weep
are so far away they’re all the same:
black and white faces coming off in the rain.

168

It starts out we’re in your car
on the road with the eyeglass store
talking about what’s on the radio
and I can make you laugh

We’re walking on the beach
And I don’t remember parking
The wind’s in my hair and so is your hand
We’re standing sitting our shoulders touch I’m facing you

We’re in a rowboat in the ocean
And there isn’t any land but the sky is closer than we’ve ever seen
Your voice is mine and it says
That I’m the only face you know

We’re in the dark
and my footsteps don’t make any sound
and I can’t move my mouth
I feel around I don’t feel anything

167

there’s just one place that waits for me
when I leave. everywhere else is stepped sat on touched
by stranger skin like wax. little trinkets will wander in and I close
the door behind them and once they’re on a shelf
they were always on the shelf and there’s nowhere else
because I got it right the first time.

it’s where everything that had a use doesn’t have
one anymore because switches aren’t
switched and rusty amber perfume bottles
are almost full. and every crinkled paper is written on all over
as if one day they’ll go off
to see the world and maybe bring back some of the people they find.

166

We couldn’t speak when I was born
a hundred a thousand years ago,
the whimpering body I started from
and I can’t speak to you now

Somewhere between there were talks in living rooms
from which I only remember a sentence or two
and always the smell of buttered toast and old furniture

If we ever meet again it’ll be
in a place without corners or colors
or cars

You’ll look the way I remember you-
in your khaki pants,
graying hair and lines around your eyes,
a pen in your shirt pocket

I’ll have had two lovers
who maybe you’d have liked,
the night I got lost,
the house with arched doorways
in the city I found
all sinking in my eyes

But you’ll hug me like you would
and say you miss my birthday cards-

And then I’m back on the sidewalk
waiting for the light to turn green
and someone turns left into a gas station.

165

You inhabited my skin
until every inch was rough
until everything I touched-
I felt less than before.

When I'm rid of you,
the rain will come and flow right through me.
It'll come down in sheets of silk
and inches away through the waterfall
your face will be a blur, then fade.

164

Of course there's nothing wrong with you-
I look away when you tear up the curtains
and I don't sew them back up
until I can't bear the sun and I've forgotten
how they got on the floor.

You'll just sit with it burning in your eyes
as you tell me about the river you saw.
I'll smile because I saw it from higher
and tell you I wish I was there with you.

163

It's not your fault your face got old
or that you replaced that shirt in all the pictures
from when I used to see you every morning.
I'll lean on one side of the door
and you'll lean on the other.

Tap me a song and we can hum
until we can't hear our own voice anymore
and one of the people you once were
turns me back to one of the people I've been.

162

Tied up to the dining room chair,
eyelids pried up, I still won't see you eating fast,
your coat hanging off the arm of the chair

as rain taps the rood
and there's nothing outside.

I'll see again in the morning
when you yawn down the stairs
and thank me for the coffee
I made for you last night.

161

Then finally we were upside down.
I didn't know where you were
but you were against me.

And I think for a second I disappeared
because I can't remember what happened
between your breath and your hand.

160

The day after the funeral
she curled up on the ground
and said "Now the only one who loves me
loves everything"

So she went where blades of grass
still stood up tall
and climbed the tree
that only she could see

159

I gave you everything that makes me happy
and you put them in boxes
in your garage

So now when I sneak into it through the back door
to get them from the shelves
to look at what's inside
for just a little while,

I can hear you through the wall
The floor creaks with your feet
and then you mumble, tenderly.

158

Jim around the corner goes
places no one takes pictures of
and shoots people who's faces he'll never see
with home's he'll never see

Dan across the street
buys the paper
reads the numbers
then writes some on a check
for the electrical

157

All I know is I was there with you,
at some place I'll never see

Somewhere you were walked by an abandoned old theater,
then sat down to think of me.

156

You call me when the food is done
to come sit at the table,
tell me about a guy at work
who brings his own microwave.

Then come tings of forks on plates.
It becomes the room and goes away.
I wait for the moment when you wipe your mouth
and say something to yourself.

"Hi it's me I got your call-"
then you pick up your own plate
put it in the sink
and brush my chair on your way out.

And I always forget to listen
to where you go from there.
Always wondering if you'd hear me
if I asked who you were talking to.

155

Anyone could have been the last one left
so it didn't make me special

I always thought it would be me,
but I guess everyone does

Because the buildings disappear
when no one's looking at them

So all I had to do was
go to sleep.

154

And when it rains
the world becomes streaks of lights
floating in a foggy lake

from the inside of a train,
I turn it into snow
and the door opens for you

while the trains still moves.
You come and sit down next to me,
say you were wandering all night

looking for me.
I don't know where you really are right now,
but I'm still smiling between my hood
as I walk off the train and make the run
to my car.

153

The girl on the corner
who always yelled
was never the kind
to disappear
and never be found

three days later,
half buried in the ground.

So when the picture of her
with a birthday hat
got into the local news,
her hair was so curly,
we wondered how they knew.

152

Waste up out my window,
I own this view. No one watches cars here
like I do.

I know where the sirens are
going before I hear them speeding up

Leaning back into the shadows of my roof
before anyone sees me
if they can.

But I watch them drive into the dead end
and quietly turn around.