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To Solitude
Oh, let me swim a little, will you? That’s what a woman said
at the pond yesterday. Oh, Michael, let me swim a little,
and she actually swam ahead and left him, paddling
his thin arms and legs. He wasn’t wearing a life-vest.
The water was deep enough to disappear into blurry blackness
from which it’s hard to recover bodies. She swam ahead
and I kept an eye on the kid. Solitude,
there’s only so much of you on earth to go around,
but I don’t want anyone dying on your account.
In some other place I’ll write about the union of bodies
dancing at my daughter’s wedding, or the guests from out of town,
not yet gone, but just now I’m thinking of my scary
pent up need to be apart. They’re off to the flea market
for the morning. I thought I’d stay in the deserted house,
let my coffee steam up into the silence like an offering,
to you, my shameful love, and summon you, hoping
you’ll stay with me, and won’t go off by yourself, leaving me
with flat emptiness, the busy bread maker paddling its dough,
the shouting brightness of my wife’s paintings reproaching me
for missing out on the flea market. But no, you’re here.
You’ve come off your boat to be with me, and will find me,
from time to time, even for a brief kiss during a wedding,
when everyone’s whirling around, and I hear you whispering.
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