Consider a Move
The steady time of being unknown,
in solitude, without friends,
is not a steadiness which sustains.
I hear your voice waver on the phone:
Haven't talked to anyone for days.
I drive around, I sit in parking lots.
The voice zeroes through my ear, and waits.
What should I say? There are ways
to meet people you would want to love?
I know of none. You come out stronger
having gone through this? I no longer
believe that, if I once did. Consider a move,
a change, a job, a new place to live,
someplace you'd like to be. That's not it,
you say. Now time curves back. We almost touch.
Then what is? I ask. What is?
A Shape for it
Sometimes when time goes by
I feel it bend.
The day becomes the same white room,
and the day won't end.
It's walls show no human scratch,
no useless wild attempt,
and echo no curse or cry,
but do not relent.
I awake amazed to be inside,
like an inmate slapped awake
while dreaming of an endless field
where the sun makes
festival of a girl's long yellow hair,
and she sways to gather
her dress as she waits,
and time seems clear as air.