WAY TO CLOSE
I am lying here on the bed
past midnight
staring at a naked sixty watt globe
lucky
I’m not a moth
otherwise I would be up there
battering my wings against the light
caressing the hot surface
like a
lover (if that is indeed
by any stretch of
the imagination
what moths do)
up there circling like an asteroid
threatening
to do some damage
making a tiny
racket, making a fool of myself
on the bed
unread
my book of celebrated love quotes and
poetry (some sexy
snippets in there too), my book
on the science of everything (special, general: got to
love that relativity theory
almost as good as
the crazy sublimity of
pure quantum physics)
and my books
on creative writing that I would like to
(and should already) know
backwards
but
somehow fail to integrate, implement
and other verbs
apposite and appropriate
lying on my bed
oozing out sexual imagination
almost
all of it aimed at you my dear,
my code named,
my sometimes video calls
to tease with
the agitation of
my protons, neutrons
my every electron
five minutes away
as the crow flies, longer
as the moth flies
and yet
in different galaxies light
years distant
still staring
hoping I might just fall asleep
not wake up from
horrific nightmare
(all those anxieties we
trade — big
trade off — for bein.g human)
only to find
we’ve truly lost it
swallowed the light gone
thermonuclear
and what a day
for it
it would be
make the day so
full of dark symmetry
I am lying on the bed
past midnight
morning of the day
my mother died
(how is that — is
it not
textbook
coda
perfect way to close?).