I am not, as she says, trying to trick myself into imagining

or fancying us together--- there is no trick in that:

either she is running parallel to me, or one of us

is lagging behind, out of spite, out of apathy, out of range,

ignoring the lingering within earshot, self-deafened,

imposed upon, or feeling bereft, afloat on a raft in a Martian sea.



Sometimes I try to trick the bogeymen, the white hooded

figures which lie somewhere in my occipital lobe, strangers

to flight, estranged by sleights of hands, bedeviled by mists,

or Bidwell's ghost, but with me as the spinner of a wheel,

looking out at the world, judging, reshaping, discarding

and ignoring the design, my hands shifting back & forth.



Often times, the bogeymen are like Stygian boatmen,

they stop to carry you through the darkness, sometimes quietly,

respectfully, and other times, speaking to you in low tones,

whispering the madness, in sheer, cold sentences, like steel staples.

But I've tried to look instead to my reflection, where the cold

black waters meet my face, knowing it as a mirage.



The workings of love, the love that acts, the kind you can kick

across the floor, wrestle with, stumble over on the dance floor---

force you forward, or they grind you down to a white-flag surrender.

Creating faith from uncertainty or despiar from doubt,

even so the person who shudders in its wake ultimately has

the upper hand, that no matter what the cost or how deep the scars,

there is still golden grace in the palm of the hand, once it is wished.



Sometimes love is knowing that you don't need to talk about it anymore.
To move on with the business of trying to love again.