Small Shudder
You and a quondam male,
what more—?
The home is it completed,
what else— that another is imperfect,
that you are the young and he the old,
that your several wishes, he entreats them,
is the call, and him, a mitigation.
Interruption wearing troubles,
your small shudder a flickering light,
and sightless of them, before,
vast as they are, and so fast he
had them turned out, no light,
on top of the skyline,
his care for you, don’t see it all,
no steep black arc of horizon (he sees
eventually, yet only by this shying sight
passing in shifts of more darkness,
piling objects where his vision works),
gone under for the world, at dusk
and in the skyline’s lea all troubles
cease and go to sleep— thrift, lightless,
blissful sky, having turned down the sun—
a dark, winning yolk of sky burned
behind the skyline, leaving you and he
its shape, your viscous implications
fettered under a midnight dress,
you and he, what more—?
Strange how you shudder, even despite this.
Four Minutes Until Five
Dial zero, the rudder,
and drop vodka,
navigate law.
Five is work,
twelve is home,
one is sleep,
nine is not.
-APPLAUSE-
Bridget shepherding Glenn
off to work in Illinois
Bridget: “You don't feel like going to work?”
Glenn:
[CLEVER BUT TO BE EXPECTED EPITHET]
Bridget:
[CONSOLATION FOLLOWED BY A KISS]
Glenn:
[STOCK PHRASE]
Bridget: “I know... I’d love
for you to stay, but you just can't
keep calling in sick.”
Glenn:
[SLOW INHALE TO SIGH ADMITTANCE]
A briefcase is lifted
to navigate the morning,
and an eon later the next
amatory night
arrives.
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