Thursday, March 30, 2017

Hallway of Speculation

My glasses tip toe on my nose as I
tuck myself behind New Yorker
magazines and ungraded papers.

What is this cat and mouse?

I ponder the space in the middle, a canyon
of cowardice and closet doors -
doors already opened but cracking.

I am here, and he is there.

Wednesday night coffee - a ritual of
deaf mute gestures, optimism, and
a quiet, loud waiting.

He is a terrible whisperer.

We see each other, no?
Stoic patience awaits a wink -
for him to ask what I am writing.

"Funny you should ask," I would say.

Our eyes peep and meet through closet
door hinges - peering down
a long hallway of speculation.

Can he glimpse the brown of my eye?

This poem is a crinkled up note tossed
tumbling down the hall - a white flag
kind of note. An impatient surrender.

Where did my guts go, and my glittered spine?

But Ignorance is warm, and Hope can live
there - hunkered down in a bastion of
postponement and timidity - surviving,

on the freeze-dried butterflies of my stomach.

Flip the clasp of your inhibition and cast
open the chest of your heartbeat -
embrace the canyon and leap.

Hello, mouse.

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