#8

just when i came to know
to malign my ignorance--
this is lost to me, but
i can remember the back seat
of an ’81 datsun.
sleepily borne
by words freed
from context or connotation,
from any meaning save that
of three bodies in motion.

in the overheated cab
of yalver’s pick up i am
exhausted again tonight.
longer legs folded up
onto the dashboard, this time
I am trying to understand
the words skimming
over consonants that
hum along behind me
through stories
of flowers and factories.
I am trying to build the scaffolding
to hang these words for meaning
so I mine the metal off this truck
and i drive it
to the abandoned school
by the old house on Clouet;
I do it up in facades
from the juvie jail.
I gut the insides and refashion it
into something from Maria,
Full of Grace, but instead
of unnamed de-thorners,
it’s the four of us inside.
this way, I can imagine my way
into your life before this car I can
weave myself into all your places
where I do not belong.

we both believe what we said, that:
anything I have, that you need,
is yours.
but I have kept my ignorance so close
strapped my ribs round it
like startled, spasmic wings.
if I could bear it,
knee deep even
and meet your gaze
I think we could play
the distance between us
like cats cradle.
I’ve heard that voids collapse
can’t stand to be surrounded
by eyes.

if i could mourn one loss
from my childhood today
it would be the capacity
to not understand.