the competence of loss –

He lost himself in tiny moments;
the color of my hair,
the way my lips would part then,
the pollen on my cheek.
I think he was my suffocation;
for him I abandoned life
and dropped the centers of religion,
and truths told to parents.
He spoke to me like a windhover
and pierced angels fled his eyes
as I reached for him in those mornings
of persimmoned light.
The Jesuits spoke of cannibals
who stand in velvet pews,
of logarithms, similes, and minds like windows,
but all I wanted
was something like a goblet,
made of clay, set with stone,
something like his skin
to shatter.
Lilies bloomed upon his cuff.
So every door I closed
I saw him down long porches,
lit by dusk,
legs spread like rails and eyes closed.


This month I had trouble breathing
in a waiting room.
It had to do with tension,
and closed doors and beige,
but I couldn't see him
in the reflected skyline
or hear him in the air-ducts.
I almost forgot his name.
I left and searched
for a confessional,
or a clean coffee-counter,
but bought flowers like tapestries,
petals pressed in books
or set in glass and ice
to darken and die
on carpets
or between words.


GLS
2/26/91