Ubiquitous Want Holding Eye Contact
the tendons of your wrist become steely cords,
eyes answer predictable as hoarfrost. Even this conversation
is something dark you desire.
The luminous clock,
a pall over the apartment, said, I want to be good at what I do
as much or as little as it matters…
Excruciating, this discovery:
that brass bells knelling, the point
of a finger against thronging otters, those couriers of night,
are the things undoing courage, the rise above our basest natures.
No glance pregnant as yours across the room
ever created such wildness
in the mass of my chest. You entering the apartment—
How your black motorcycle boots lay beside the bed—
one fallen, one standing open to the heavens
to keep the luck inside
like a ten gallon hat or a horseshoe. Such emptiness we call Congratulations.
A plunge & taunt at the patina,
your glance returned
inside a glance. Now as it was across the room, my arms
my legs bound to the wood-stained chair
a waterboard torture
self-induced. Now as you call to praise the other coast.
Away from you, water-crossed
by rivers, lacerations over distance on the map.
The past empties unto them.
Occlusion, your gaze across the room. Other subjects brought up & so on…
Now, tenebrous, I stand before you, unto you
in narrow-lashed eyes
a solitary example
of redaction from time, where you are
poured into black boots
always entering the room.
Matthew Kaler
View all poems by Matthew Kaler