babyhead

I make little peach cakes, spicy with ginger, and watch the line at the counter.

A boy stands about six inches away from the girl he came here with, and watches her run a finger down the menu choices. Both hands are in his pockets, he looks at the girl, who has pulled back her hair from her face, and sees saintly light.

I look away, and think about travel at night, train cars, moon across a sleeping face, and fingers in stray hair. I warm myself on his love.

The tall Russian kisses my shoulder and bicep six and then seven times.

She says: I was thinking about you in bed last night. About how kind you are to me.

I say: There really is no reason for me not to be.

She says: I just don't understand sometimes.

She says: We are going to have beautiful babies together.

Then the tall Russian kisses me again, holds on to me tight, and waves as she leaves for the coast with her boyfriend.

I go drinking with the boys,

and the third time Edward in his cable knit sweater and oxford shirt

asks us to leave

we do.

My feet are sad and confused as I cross the expanse of asphalt service roads.

From the warehouse facade a motion sensing spotlight winks a hello at me.

I lie down on the pavement and look up to the clearing skies, and wait for the light to turn itself off, as try to understand why your absence is so significant.

I think about whether my feelings for you are just emblematic of everything in my life that has not responded, that has not answered my attention or love, with a resonance.

Or if there is some other reason, I absently say your name,

in full, over every morning coffee.

I think about the place, dark and wet, under the overpass, close to the home that has a small curved window built into the center of its chimney.

There is a spot on the street to my house where the ice refuses to melt.

�You might just be a masochist,

or maybe you suffer from some weird offshoot of M�nchausen syndrome.�

I find gravel in my hair as I bring my hands behind my head, trying to find a more comfortable position in the road, and can see clearly that there are oily movements to the clouds that are not perceived in the daylight.

I pick up rocks

and throw them as far as I can from my back,

and listen to them bounce in the dark.

I did not expect any of this.

I want to leave the thing that bays here in the dark,

Alone,

As I understand that to forgive someone is not having to protect yourself

from that person any longer,

but I have no idea who to forgive,

except maybe myself.

I do not know how to do that.

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