325

Because if they meant it every time
there would never be a place so heavy
for remembering you
like under the only lamp post on the street
that dies dimmer each time you walk underneath

324

I never felt the tension in a
beaten old table with three legs

323

Don't make me know you
before I move out alone
someplace I want to go.

I couldn't help but hear you speak
to the doorman on the bottom floor.
I'd never have known he played the saxophone
and you were dressed like you had someplace to go.

322

I'll admit I was angry with you
for so quickly becoming so old.
You've had to look at me too
since we've been alone here,
but I hated you for your dirty fingernails
hunched shoulders and lines in your face
that I haven't seen on my own.

321

And later what she wore
would be a pile on the floor
next to your pile of books
and pile of sheets and pillows
in the dark.

But that is years from now
and though you know that it'll come,
for now, you look at her more on days she shows her knees
than when she shows her arms.

320

Staying still is only neutral
if you can't move.
Do you keep your feet planted
when the wind tempts you?

Well you struggled to stand
for so long with the ground
pushing up at your feet.

319

In the seat next to you
her legs were like tree branches.
She must be some kind of unattainable
when she looked like your sister
every time you thought to move
your hand from your thigh to hers.

318

Really we're all amputees
though you say you never though you'd be
I don't remember much of being small
when I'd lean over to scratch my ankle

317

I wouldn't have asked for it
but your permanence is comforting.
Alive, you were always changing
and after we burned the day I'd learn I loved another you,
all that was left to heat into dirt was everything you ever wrote.

316

Our shoulders have been touching since Michigan.
You tied your shoe in Illinois
in no special manner
and when one of us gets off the train
I will not think of you as gone.

315

Who decides what's only in our heads
Once my eyes were closed
it could have been a heated tire,

with my hand pinching my nose
a shot of thunder in the dark,

and with my ears covered it could have been
my own layer of wilderness
underneath the tops of trees
underneath the stars

314

All the furniture is nailed into the floor
and all the lamps and plants and clocks
glued down to desks and table tops

so when the sun began to rise and I finally
got home from you
it looked as if I'd never been away.

313

And did you really try avoiding it?
Or do you still wake up here every day?
If there's another option tell me why
birds sing to you in mornings
whether you're awake to hear it or not

312

I put a wall around you
and ran as far as I could before you got over

I ran too far,
there you weren't, along with the rest
of the people from where you and I lived.

Did I get too far, or go too long?
You knew the only place I could trap you
was inside my home.

311

There was always something I could say
until you told me I had
twelve hours to get to Singapore
from my upstairs apartment
in downtown New York

310

Nailing the cabinets back into the wall
the day after I ripped them out
and all the contents on the floor

was I think your best punishment so far.
When you hung up the phone I screamed your name-
I'll make sure when you get home it looks the same.

You can have the credit for how pretty the kitchen is
but not for the broken wood that once covered the floor.

309

In February I planned
to swim out into the ocean to show
everybody that I know that something's wrong with me

Then in the morning with the sea through the window
the room was cold
and I stayed in bed.

308

In the beginning, there were rows
of houses spaced evenly.
I watched the people coming and not asking
if there was a better way it could be.

307

I met you once at a wedding
of someone I once knew
to someone you once knew.

Where were you when you heard the news?
I couldn't make it to the funeral,
I hadn't seen them anyway
since I'd gotten a job and left the state.

By the look of it you've never been to this bus stop before
and neither have I
and someone I knew was once in love
with somebody you knew

306

For now, every mistake I made
was better than the right way.
I don't know what you'll do tomorrow
besides the things you do each day,
but for now you're sitting on my living room floor
even though you know that you could leave.

305

I look for the new neighbor
in the morning when I leave.
He used to be a dog walker
and that's all he ever told me.

304

Leave him thinking he could have been brighter,
he could have spent more time wanting you.
Let him lie awake trying to remember your voice
until he wouldn't recognize it if you wanted him to,
if he wanted to,
and he'll be listening for it until he's dead-
you could smooth the lines on his forehead.

303

You refused to leave until the apple was ripe.
I took a bite
and we sat down and by the time it was brown
I wasn't angry anymore.

I think in the kitchen you saw me slouch,
I think you saw me turn young
for a second when the wind blew in a smell
from the outside trees
through the window that had been jammed shut for years.

And instead you left when you looked at me
and realized you weren't in the room.

302

There is a day somewhere
when the rustic lighting in a corner bakery
turns me into exactly you need me to be.

My younger self now just a concept
I never cared to study,
I don't blame you for not waiting.

There is a moment, there's a place
that wouldn't be so bad for us
if we knew when and where it was.

301

I can only recall once
We were both living downtown
when we almost met in the day
but lunch in a cafe I'd heard about.
You've said midnight's your hour
since we were young,
when nights in parked cars
in late coffee houses
and on soft summer lawns
blend to meet us where we are.
It's hard to understand
that you go out to the grocery story
and I don't ever want to run into you there.

300

I knew him in the bar for years,
every few Saturdays and he was always there
when I came and when I left. At first I wouldn't tell him
about my life and my wife and everything
that happened upstairs, in the light
until nothing seemed as real as him and the bar.

When I was older I stopped speaking so much
and enjoyed his enjoying my company.
Never asking him where he lived
and never did he leave before I did.

Ten years of the man in the bar, and one day
I saw him at the park
sitting by the big fountain with a can of Coke
and when he saw me watching him he agreed to look away.

Saturday night at the bar I sat
and told him what my wife said.

299

If you can live in margins
in the backs of heavy throats,

kick up the furniture
where it may or may not float back down.

Live where nothing tells you what time the sun comes up
if you can eat with the table hovering overhead
without wondering why

298

Stand where I can see you
so I don't have to wonder

I'm not going to watch you
as long as you know that I could

Otherwise disturb my sleep
blending in with the dark air and the walls.

297

When my brother took my money
to pay for his cigarettes and medical bills
and someone to tell him why
his dreams took place in his own bedroom

I realized I could love you
for if I had to, I would,
and I do sometimes when you forget you're alive.
You weren't born alone.

296

You told me you could build a wall
of cardboard boxes I could sit upon

You were so sure that I
climbed up for yards
and watched you, proud of the work you'd done

So when it fell I wasn't sure
if I'd actually fallen

295

For how much they knew,
the furniture surprised them
as it didn't move across the floor
in swift heavy jolts
when somebody spoke

294

The uncle in the room
can't remember the joke he told last year.
Everyone wishes the kids were small again
as they politely decline dessert
and maybe they should have planned it
so that they would still be young
when a cane leaned against the wall
and later someone would have to fold
back up the table.

293

When the power went out
in the subway car,
they wished they hadn't been afraid
to get caught wondering
what faces match the breathing of the
people next to them
while they still could see