To grief

I do not want — poetry, anymore

I do not want — that which cannot be known and can only be imagined

Do not tell me, what can be imagined is known

Do not tell me, that there is any life in these spectral fragments

I do not want — us, asking each other, in turn: what are aesthetics

We now know: the question was the pleasure, the pleasure was all we sought.

I do not want — the small of you, the shape of your nose, the dry palms of your hands, a coat, a skin

I do not want — the coffee or the morning, the wind that tries to be

I do not want — poems that imagine you, anymore, poems about your molecules, poems about poetry,

Poems are not manuals, not memories, hardly even themselves

I do not want — our encounter, anymore, how you offer me, yourself

I do not want — to realize, another time, our infinite difference, no theory for it, none

I do not want — wounds, I do not want them, even as metaphors, worst of all, as metaphors

I do not want — articulation, can I be near you? Without articulation, only quiet, like the cup

I do not want — symbols, gestures, how your hair asks to be touched, too exquisite, to be touched

I do not want — the papers or the books, there is no otherwise, no elsewhere,

and I cannot reckon, cannot love

I do not want — to write the same poem anymore, over and over, smoothing the same crease,

touching the same texture, as though this is what freedom is I do not want — to question light anymore, to ask why it fell that way, about the object,

why it illuminated thus

I do not want — myself, cascading, essentially nothing, nothing in particular, after all

I do not want — to lie with you anymore, dreaming of your astral body, how you sleep,

troubled and free

I do not want — the longing, anymore, for a writing that does express it, for an embrace

that sharpens and softens all at once,

that passes through the body, like a whim, like a ghost —

Leave me here, just here, where sadness fells me to the earth, and I hold little to my chest, save for the possibility that I’ve written something that keeps me close to you.

Image courtesy of iStock.com/ozgurkeser