STRANDED

It's the same as saying
life goes on even though
it may not. Reality
creates a pattern and slides

it under the door. Meanwhile,
I keep digging up bits
of a language I buried
a long time ago. But

when I put the words
together, either nothing
happens, or something is
said, but in a voice so

low not even the neighbors
can remember what I mean.

THE DISTANCE BETWEEN HERE AND NOW

With you into a silence
only night can explain.
The telephone and its story,
one that leaves the art part out of Oslo.

Often I would see you walking there.
Other times the moon would seem to slip
between the trees. Or I would imagine
myself interrupting you as you were about

to say something. I never know what.
I always assume more than can happen
and end up having to forgive myself again.
Then I close my eyes and pretend

it has to be Tuesday. As if that
could be the answer to a prayer.

OPENINGS

Out of the Teflon
pan into the choir
loft. Let us sing,
or not sing, as

the mood moves
us. From here
to there. Out of
this into that.

Out like lamp
light when the
switch switches
off. In even

the out door in the
unlikely event of rain.

SUMMER

What the wind forgets
in the mountains remains
largely untranslatable.
Still, I try in my

scarcely adequate way
to mean at least a small
part of what you think
I should. Token smiles

from across the room
invite us down a steep
flight of stairs into
a memory of what

might have been, but
managed not to be.

FARTHER

The where and when
we won't know until
it's too late, the wherefore
not even then. Larger

examples of what's
not possible arrive
in boxes labeled
"Fragile". Please stop

meaning every word
you say. It makes my
head hurt and my
feet eager to move

at least away, and
maybe farther than that.

THEY SAY

They say he took
his soul out and
flung it straight
into the mirror

without breaking
anything (it was
one of those old-
fashioned mirrors

made of water, like
the one Narcissus
fell into that
day when he was

bent over the bank
trying to get in).

AUTOACROPHOBIA

His exceptional height
left him with a fear
of falling into himself
(autoacrophobia, I think

they call it). His
sense of who he
was shifted with
the tides, but he

never forgot where
he came from because
he never knew. His
mother refused to

tell him for fear he
might find himself there.