Wednesday, March 23, 2011

What it Means

Do I say that I have two brothers and one sister or do I say that I have two brothers and I used to have a sister or does that suggest that she is no longer my sister despite an acute absence like our fingers touch two sides of sheeted ice and we both move together but our worlds are not synchronous in her image mine like a moon in wind-strewn Gulf and though it is all so still and cold there is always movement away from and away from so that I have two brothers and there is one sister and she peels a dark shell from this snow where we might sit one day and I have a wife and a sister and should I suggest they protect me when I am most vulnerable though only one sinks into my bed and I have a sister and a wife and a dog and two mothers and what do I do when I want to know which one to finally crumble before and pray and ask to be forgiven or who do I allow my love to flow around and past to fill the room in unspeakably quiet ways saturating the way I clench my fists or do I not clench them at all but hold her skin in my palms if the space between is erased there will be no turning and leaving and which one will touch me back or do I say only that I am loved not by saying I am loved but by never getting to say what I wanted to say in the first place which is that it is better not to speak but like those voyagers waiting to leave to let everything that could be said be torn apart and wind-strewn back upon us in ways that cannot be spoken

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