— for C.G.
Another snifter of straight bourbon
shuttles back and forth.
Along a three-inch patch of bar top,
your right hand, intent,
a blend of care and caution,
as though whiskey
could be a Jenga block
placed precariously
on the swaying tower
you say currently resembles your life.
We talk for hours.
Movies. Music. Food.
Easy laughter connects us,
kindred neurons briefly firing
in time with one another
keeps time passing easily…
But I’m circling back
to the bourbon, to unnecessary
sorries, and the circles
below your eyes.
Like warning signposts
so I understand we are here
for different reasons—
that nothing I say
will amount to something
that might color the grey
camouflaged in mirth.
We are missing some blocks,
you and I, empty spaces in us both
that we could stick our arms
through straight to the shoulder.
Too old, too young,
too experienced, too disappointed.
Too, incomplete.
Our world already has a dead sun.
The moon and stars reflect
nothing back at us.
Stepping out into the late
evening, into sweet June air,
the way you look as we part…
honest openness, captivated by the here and now;
then an unexpected goodnight kiss
that has the women
near the window smiling.
From whatever corner
of future I think back from,
it’s here that I’ll look for you.
In a soft slant of possibility.
Before we reached the limits
of what’s been rebuilt from loss,
blocks of unresolved disenchantments
pulled from the past, stacked on
the present until unstable,
and everything must fall.
Until everything
must start over again.
