this is just to say: narrow distress

24 October 2009

narrow distress

It's funny that when I look back at what I wrote two weeks ago (my poem assignment and previous entry, I can't remember what it felt like to feel that kind of slack-anguish.

But it comes back, sanguine & quick.

He was here for a fortunate few days last week. It already seems like years ago--it was better than a dream. I got to be on vacation, too. Took off work, skipped Sculpture class, slept in, did nothing, but just, be together, next to one another. Rolled dough, baked pie, made BLT&Es. We walked a lot, held hands.

It felt better than any other moment we have ever had together. I wish it had always been like this--but I know that we had to endure what he/I did to get to this point.

I hadn't seen him since July 20.

I was foolish. I am a fool.

It is difficult to adjust back to my hectic life after that beautiful lull. We went to the contemporary art museum with 'unusual' art installations at Beacon in Upstate. Took the train. My heart hurts even now, to remember how it was, with him. The exterior space around me which accommodates, matches my shape. I feel like crying.

He took these beautiful pictures by the Hudson while we waited in the freezing cold for the train home. I wrote later, My beautiful, indefatigable moment. My hour, my season. I can neither force nor help how I feel.

Wild river.

My fears remain the same. I rode the train to meet him at JFK, and went with him again five days later, standing at Security until his green sweater disappeared around the snaking corner. How do I go back to my life?

I live nowhere.

He purposefully left his toothbrush behind in the bathroom paste/brush holder. I use his towel everyday. Loss is a weight; emptiness is worse than gravity.

School is going well; my professors encourage me to continue doing what I'm doing--they're pretty enthusiastic that I have to be excited as well. I'm fortunate, they say. I worry too much to be able to fully appreciate.

I got lost today. Felt the tide of departure come, burning me like a mist. I hate that it slips me so easily.

Some days, basic tasks are more difficult than usual. But we have days to look forward to. I'll be there in November, in Dec/Jan. We make plans. We miss, very much, but we're in the same place.

from "Euphoria," by Sina Queyras

1

Dear Regret, my leaning this morning, my leather foot, want of stone, my age
Old, burnished and bruised, my hair lingering, my hand caked, spongy as
November my dear Relentless, my dear Aging, your voice tinny, dissonant
As Stein shot through decades of war and Fortrel, cocktails on the hour,
Zeppelins over Piccadilly, bombing blindly in the fog. Dear Skin, dear Tobacco
Mouth my refusal, my merely geographic, my fibrous strings for you: your
Abundant wit, your lack of shadow and still joy nosing the air. Each moment
Stretches toward you, your dry feet: I carried them, pumiced and peppery
Laid them where regret is a biscuit thing to lean upon and sweeten,
My hour of you, my cursive thoughts, a pulpit beating under these ribs.

2

Dear Time, you swallowed us whole, swallowed us lovely, sharp as bones
Crimping sadly under foot my benign, my flotsam and crabs thin as leaves
Your smoothing, your sinking in. Mornings or mooring, or wallowing
Jericho: tapioca air indolent. I am still there, supple and driftwood, you lovely,
You loved me, your memory dark and west, thoughts like tugboats stitching
The horizon, you pulling me, my pudding, my thin crustacean, sideways
In the late afternoon, your gaze, having so soon forgotten the sharpness
Of mornings, the bite of your look serrating the hour: my treasures, all
Of them, for the pleasure of that slice once more, of our dangling,
You and me, the lot of us in some car, driving some hour, mapless.

3

Under a spiderweb, a tire, slouched: flat, sad-lipped, I think of Newton
Of the original apple, all of these clones since, all of these scentless
Descents. I shake my glass, shake again, melted suffixes tinkling; observe
All things natural: foliage unfurling like old bills, wryly betraying
Your habits, like the dog who digs and rubs, the dog who whines, who
Paws and circles, you trace. Why is pain so much better than nothing? Or
The mark of it more understandable? Why is saying nothing so much better?
Your one-liner like blossoms, uplifting, your currents strap me to air, yes
I guess there is a little texture up here, and oxygen pure as baby’s toes
Which if I recall, are sweet as kernels of corn, if I recall so long ago.

4

To arrive is practice, conversation or conversion, a story over a field
My Sweet, of concrete or whispering, furrows of a path no longer, not
Sure, was there, and snow combed in curlicues and dog ears a zigzag
Through January. Sure you are witty, but are you any less romantic?
In my remembering, I have undone all my beliefs, it is a luxury to lay
Unencumbered here, or there, the bones flexed with tendons, the
Spine like a seahorse, the heart far from a cliche unless beating is
Innocent, though innocence is not as supple as you think, nor as flexible,
Nor as perfumed, nor convenient, or even clean: between things regret
Gathers force. I remember that day: it was cold and the coffee tepid.

5

The small red balloons like thumbprints, waves green as the brush of
Cedar, the wind lapping your hoodie, blind strings tap the air, camera
Bobbing like a dog’s tail. Such lightness, the dog heading off, all
The dogs of English Bay angling off-leash. I would follow backward,
Lay old maps on your white sheets, so sincere, I am in earnest for you:
We won’t regret having not yet knit our acrid puns and jaded barbs, nor
Having the wind slip in under our belt loops, though I gently refuse
Gor-Tex, and you bet I will not concede the game. Those small red
Balloons like tulips in your eyes specs of amber, an amulet, an avatar,
My thoughts of you fully indexed, ready to step into.

24 October 2009

narrow distress

(underbed stor)age