Thirst

I turn the handle and wait
as the water fills my cup.

It's early morning-- most probably you
are asleep. I hear the birds wake
with their chirps, their songs. The sky

is just beginning to turn the color of twilight.

Does it matter to me
if someone else is in your bed with his
arms wrapped around you
the way mine would?

I ponder that as my glass fills, as
I look through the window up
at the sky...

The clouds are big and gray, so it looks
like rain and suddenly,

it's not water I want.

The Listener, by Billy Collins, from Nine Horses

I cannot see you a thousand miles from here,
but I can hear you
whenever you cough in your bedroom
or when you set down
your wineglass on a granite counter.

This afternoon
I even heard scissors moving
at the tips of your hair
and the dark snips falling
onto a marble floor.

I keep the jazz
on the radio turned off.
I walk across the floor softly,
eyes closed,
the windows in the house shut tight.

I hear a motor on the road in front,
a plane humming overhead,
someone hammering,
then there is nothing
but the white stone building of silence.

You must be asleep
for it to be this quiet,
so I will sit and wait
for the rustle of your blanket
or noise from your dream.

Meanwhile, I will listen to the ant beating
a dead comrade
across these floorboards---
the noble sounds
of his tread and his low keening.

Desire, Desire, Desire...

-

I see you at the train station—
figment—
with our lives dragging behind you

all that time— spent

but it's not you in
black pants—
the way you'd wear yours, a
coat—
like I imagine you'd wear now


--Written December 05, 2004 (revised 8-20-05)


[Rewrite]
I see your figment at the train station
with our lives dragging behind

black pants like yours;
coat like one you'd wear now

but it's only me in a strange wanting,
no stranger to a stranger wanting.
--[Rewritten] December 24, 2004

--------------------

I am nutritious
Eat me
Digest me
Let my flesh
Feed yours

Let me satisfy you

Your body will
Decompose me

I'll feed your cells
I'll give your heart
Generous pulse

I'll flow through your veins
In your blood

Let me become so much
of you

Let me...
--Written July 18, 2004

--------------------

So many unsent letters

And unsaid words

I dont want to bother you

I want to leave you alone

And I can

But really

I am dying to be with you again!
--Written June18, 2004

Sculpt me out of a small block of marble

-


Sculpt me out of a small block of marble

for my face a song
my torso
carved undone, chipped...

for my arms two poems

and for my legs and feet
I'd like blades

of grass
--Written December 16,2004

I watched the sunset from my office window.

-


I watched the sunset from my office window.

Up here, far away
from two lives down there

the one I have
and the one I want

I see the city, a running pattern
of broken amber dots

on a black plane
stretching over the

slowly darkening horizon.

Written---November 6, 2004

Last night

-


Last night
I felt your breath on my neck.

I put on my clothes and shoes;
left a note
taped to the door.

I left you.

At home the sun
was being filtered through the linen curtain
of my bedroom window.

Unbuttoned, unzipped, unclothed
I sank into my bed.
I smelled of you
and of too much to drink
--Written June 26, 2004

This morning

-


This morning
I opened my eyes
and saw you lying next to me.

Each eye resting behind
a thin layer of flesh.

The sound of your breathing...
before you woke up.

--Written October 2003

Touch Me - By Stanley Kunitz

Summer is late, my heart.
Words plucked out of the air
some forty years ago
when I was wild with love
and torn almost in two
scatter like leaves this night
of whistling wind and rain.
It is my heart that's late,
it is my song that's flown.
Outdoors all afternoon
under a gunmetal sky
staking my garden down,
I kneeled to the crickets trilling
underfoot as if about
to burst from their crusty shells;
and like a child again
marveled to hear so clear
and brave a music pour
from such a small machine.
What makes the engine go?
Desire, desire, desire.
The longing for the dance
stirs in the buried life.
One season only,
______________and it's done.
So let the battered old willow
thrash against the windowpanes
and the house timbers creak.
Darling, do you remember
the man you married? Touch me,
remind me who I am.