babyhead

And I imagine that when you come into view, long after I hear your gaite; the one that follows Tolt, cloven hooves pressed against the asphalt that covers the road to my house, that the canal of Schlemm (the one that I tend to) will blush in spreading patches of India Ink,

And I assume...
that my mouth will gape
and teeth
howmany
there are left
will drop past palm
and scatter worthlessly
underfoot
as I hold still
in a position of utter amazement,
followed by the rounded stoop
of my knuckled back
and my arms
will crash
like chain loaded theater curtains
after all is said.

Yet I will look
hard
trying to catch you
under the street lamp
just
as I will try
to catch
the debris that floats
between
my brown iris and my gaze at the snow,
only
to catch nothing but what that is imagined.

I confess,
that she and I take turns,
minding shift,
during the night,
to pull the drapes back an inch,
as the other sleeps
comforter pulled away from the body,
and look to what
when you will step
into the circle of sodium light
outside the house.

And whether it is to know
that which
we will never to be able to talk
over
or about
with the other

or if it is just because

we want to be
the first
to be smothered
in your damp
dark closet pelt,

stinking and buzzing
of confusion

because we will have not
to offer up
an explanation in the morning.

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