2003-06-07
2003-06-07 - 10:18 a.m.
I woke up sad and shaking today after a powerful dream about a friend who's no longer part of my life. Am I the only person who cannot rid themselves of sadness? I'm spending the rest of the morning working out like crazy, because somewhere in my unconscious, a story is brewing -- and it needs lots of room. For now, this is the poem which self-Xeroxed itself onto my consciousness last night. Think about it: which past relationship hasn't had a moment like this? And do you even remember all of them? Past Future Imperfect When we're lying heaped together then, jetsam, high tide line, sometimes I'll murmur, taking his weighty head in my hands. Sometimes the words come from an excess of fondness, sometimes from a sudden access of emptiness, the isolation of being a single creature who has two bodies again. My mouth opens as if kissing; I whisper, Did you notice me at the pool, I was trying to show off for you--I had slow-walked toward him, wanting him to suffer longing, to suffer knowledge of desire. I saw you, he says, and though we are combers' residue, a ripple passes through us. I take his huge head, gently, partly by the hair, in my palms, he is almost asleep, I mutter, close to the dune banquet of his ear, Ask me to look at you, his eyes open, with a density like cloud-light over a quiet ocean, Look at me, he says, and I look at him, and we laugh, softly, a few months later I'll think of that day, and hear us, the pair I thought was entering fresh outskirts of play, I'll see his tiredness and loneliness, we had weeks left, I'll look back and see the silence, the ignorance moving in the air around them, while the one who knew gathered strength, and the one who did not know kept vigil. Sharon Olds
Comments: Speak your piece!
former / latter
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