"In The Distances"
“In The Distances”
28 Nov; fin 02 Dec 04 16 18 and 20 22, 23 26 Apr 01 04 08 May 2020
1.
Lizzie, (thy voice, so soft to)
hear /
“the key
to it”, you sd
is to choose wisely,
to choose / remoteness,
to slip quietly
into private spaces, into distances
into wordlessness, to make
yourself
hidden, with little movement,
to watch,
to write / to wait for a call (of sorts).
You did /
call, “ come help me write this
”
as you
slipped into / your coat closet / in
your apartment /
whose air was redolent /
with the scent
/of wet red wool (it had been raining) mixed
with a wet snow
which was, how
I found you,
when I arrived
the air / red-scented
& damp.
the terrain / angled /
dark, with earth
spilled over . . .
spiritus animalis
,
untempered,
unconfined.
2.
you drew, Lizzie
that night’s air,
into /you /
panting /
rapid breath / upon breath
(before I close my eyes)
you sd
“hurry up, now”
my breathing is
buffeted,
by words,
all, like stars,
illuminated
and there are voices, everywhere
and back
you sank
removed,
fit snugly / into the darkness,
hidden there
(to transform)
yourself
your mouth fighting,
for breath /upon /slow breath
so little room left,
for anything (anyone).
It was a wet December evening / dark, you
leaned back
against your winter coats /
the taper of your wrists, streaming
with blood, as you laughed
“ it is so good to see you
”.
as I pulled you out
a jumble of coats fell,
words fell,
wet, woolen / scented,
your cascade / of life, cast
in dim light.
3.
“will I see, you
later?”, you asked,
(this is nothing)
are we spending tonight, on the roof
reading,
poetry again, or walking
in that park in Shadyside
where
we have yet to walk?”
”Perhaps, there will be someone
lingering,
in the distances.” to watch
or you,
for me.
yes, I said
everything (everyone)
will lie /
around us / tonight /
for it is yours
(alone).
4.
your mother (whose first name I forget)
drove up / from Baltimore
and implored / me to
take care of you
that somehow, finding you,
conveyed
to me,
the responsibility for your life
/ to take my own life,
which was / as raw
as yours,
for her use,
each of us,
so poorly attended,
(our limbs, to grow
close, or apart?)
5.
This question always lingers.
year after year /
was I to be
your lover?
or something else?
(finding you, was confusing)
(I was unsettlingly / aware)
of you
all ways /
for you
had lips so thick and bruised
that kissing
your ravaged mouth
held /
a harsh / eroticism, which
you knew,
I knew
no one’s thin breasts, burned
starved for air like yours,
and
no one’s hands,
(or eyes)
were so swollen,
(and wild)
nails so torn, the skin
over your knuckles, creviced
from your fall.
____________
oh
to kiss you
(which I wanted)
promised / to stop everything
(to embrace you)
promised / to
hold off / breath,
my body waiting
for words to urgently push
out / of my mouth
o, let me speak, please
this is more than I can bear
unlike you,
I bind my own
pain & wounds
with words.
6.
Your mum stayed / for 4 weeks.
while I stayed away.
She found you a new apartment.
while I prepared a thin meal,
of words, rinsed
of your blood,
rinsed, of
my blood,
rinsed / nearly lifeless.
I read to yur mum
the poem
Un endroit qui regorge de cygnes
,
which made her cry
and then
of course
she left
behind
that familial relation
of abandonment.
The one I knew
the one you knew,
so well.
7.
Within the year,
I left.
8.
on a drive to NYC in 1972
I told my story /
and your story
to my companion
who remarked
that some of us
have something, within us
(a spirit)
which keeps us
alive.
(of course)
9.
What I remember of you
(now)
/ are mostly feelings,
composed / of regret
and sadness
which are persistent.
____________
Our failures
which exist, in direct proportion
to what has been left
unresolved
unsaid, unwritten.
____________
You were the luminous woman
(the red one)
glowing more /
who
manifested
a sensuousness, which (so deep)
frightened me /
as life
frightened / me.
10.
now
when there is light
instead of fear
my mornings are
often cast
against these eastern mountains,
the sunlight, dim or bright,
defines,
first,
one boundary of the day,
and later,
a horizon,
on which, you
are often drawn,
pale &
shimmering,
in
and out
of
the light.
Always near.
All ways cajoling, always
the grey she-wolf:
Let me help you write.
“You forgot
this word, and that
memory”
(you whisper)
the shadows under the spruce trees
near the pond
could be blood
or you could make them
into words.
you choose.
