let's begin with a road/ you are
standing in the center/ your knees are bare
there is a car in the distance
with its headlights on/ your arms are in the air,

you are a tree.

you are a city
raising buildings/ out of no thing.

you are a poem. chris
you are a poem i started writing once
& could not stop: i keep separating
it/ i make it things that it is not/ i line break
i give it different names/

but by the end
it is the same story:

i know,
because i have written this poem
so many times before,
in the margins of books, &
creases of old photographs bent
in to my wallet, in the creases
of all of the eyes of all of my lovers,
in the creases of tree bark & of
city streets ---
       in the creases, yes, in

the creases, in
the corners.

i have been writing this poem
for years & years, once for each
time you've said my name beneath
your breath, or in to your pillow case,
or in to an other mouth; twice for
every thursday you've gnawed open
just for the juice.  i have
written this poem so many times,
you do not understand, i keep
writing it,
       over & over.

i write it in against the dawn
only half awake.  i even write it in my dreams.
i write it each & every time i think
of you
cocking
your hip,
leaning against a lamp post.

i have written this poem so
many times that it begins to fall
off of me.  i have written it so
many times that it begins to fall
off of every thing around me

sliding from my walls like snake skin
crawling between my window panes, then
washing away
                   like white noise, this poem
has slid its self in to
my bones & will not come out
with out you.

see: see: here it is: here is the road: you: the car:

here is the poem:

       first it is yours
       & then it is mine.

09/28/2001

Posted on 09/28/2001
Copyright © 2024 Marina Dawn