Matter in Retreat
The stars drift
away from one another
tonight as every moment you
& I breathing so thoughtless a living
we make as we are made to
as I make another promise
to myself to try to mean more
to you to call out across
a great distance but I am not
loud enough I suspect I have not
enough protest in me
the arc of my throat awaits
a tenderness or a brutality
& what are we
to one another but a means
to a meaning we haven’t yet
discovered two points of light
on the inky dark
sky two paper boats
on a black lake floating further
away every day I awake
I roll over I hide my head
we get smaller our living it’s pathetic
I mean it makes you sad
We
have been the buyer, the bought
the boy’s blood in the dirt
have been the woman in winter
the knife of her hunger
have been the knife at her throat
have ravaged and burned, been burned
have been the rope that hangs
the hands that bind the hands, that set the flame
have been a land cleared by the flame
a land lit by the moon
a sky cleared by lit homes
have been a man reduced
to a body, a body to bones
have emboldened, been made bold
have been uplifted, held
under, mourned, been mourned
have been a tale told
and untold
have been a language lost
owning nothing of ourselves
have been a love that dims
the line drawn between us to remind
have deceived, been taken in
have been destroyed
have been beginning
have been discovery, a new fruit
growing ripe within our skin
