*

In You That's Not Me


Unquenched by fog this is

the manner in which it is said.

My eyebrow droop does tricks,

want to watch? I've made such sad

the willow a medal returned to the widow.


Damp passage to rub your shoulders up on.

In a moment there's light,

a symptom of less-concerned, less conscious.

It turns over.

I mistake the fog, think it you. My fog, so familiar.


I want fog as god,

teach myself the gradations of the sublime

to know every tremor. Only one who loves

knows you are microtonal.

My fog is not you.


But still in the still

ness of fog there pass cloud echoes,

void drifting in light, assurance:

these are like you. You were not made

to be sweet, nor dark. A twitch of your leg

should be enough, my eyes are closed, you draw me in.

The mess I've made on your leg glows,

do you remember me not saying it,

or what you said before your face?


Well, the fog is not cryptic,

not at least as a wading pool, or the wooden pews.

So we substitute one word for another, one thing.

We're no smarter for it,

and then we waltz it away,

contest it's alive. I've thought of you

as frail,

wet seeds without sun,

possessed as another,

kneeling before me.

Picture one day your heart giving out,

you sit at a seaside window and sigh.

You then have no clothes,

you're touching yourself.


I tell you Go On.

Fog over the water, feel it?

It's not my fog, in you

that's not me, me, you.

But yes you me me you.