I knocked at the door of my life
and someone was already there,
standing in a future I had not thought to build,
speaking words I hoped to recognize.
For years I woke beside him
in the dark, studied
the tiny hairs on his back. Some
left, some right, like sea babies. They moved
around in their direction.
Light came over the window ledge, passing itself by. What
could it do, loving only
its opposite. Got stuck in the bent-over
dust motes, the little furnace. Got stuck
in the hairs on his back.
What could I do with the old need for entrapment.
The tragedy (and gift) of not
being the other person. The gift of not being
in the same body ‘as he.’
I lay in the bed or the room of my life
where my brief shadow had not slept
and watched the night come down and touch his eyes
till waking, I was called out of myself
and in place of the old blindness
were the eyes of a new face tired with wonder
and in place of the soul’s deaf question, was a voice—