(After Caroline’s Return)
You lie in my insomniac arms,
as if you drank sleep like coffee.
Then,
like a bear tipping a hive for honey,
you shake the pillow for French cigarettes.
No conversation—
then suddenly as always cars
helter-skelter for feed like cows—
suburban surf come alive,
diamond-faceted like your eyes,
glassy, staring lights
lighting the way they cannot see—
friction, constriction etc.
the racket killing
gas like alcohol.
Long, unequal whooshing waves
break in volume,
always very loud enough to hear
méchants, mechanical—
soothe, delay, divert
the crescendo always surprisingly attained
in a panic of breathlessness—
too much assertion and skipping
of the heart to greet the day …
the truce with uncertain heaven.
A false calm is the best calm.
In noonday light,
the cars are tin, stereotype and bright,
a farce
of their former selves at night—
invisible as exhaust,
personal as animals.
Gone
the sweet agitation of the breath of Pan.