They are used to blizzards, in Detroit
They do not blink an eye
While my past year's entanglements
Come billowing by.
It's just another jet black night here
That rises to pure white.
The planes take off, amazingly
While I can't evade her presence.
I let her slip in as close as breath.
She studied the secrets of life and death.
But little did I know, from her clanging accent,
That every girl in Michigan was her sister.
The walls don't respond, except with billboards
Of other lives imagined by advertising dreamers
As my happiness: couples on beaches,
Couples in pools, by mountains, in cars,
They do not blink an eye
While my past year's entanglements
Come billowing by.
It's just another jet black night here
That rises to pure white.
The planes take off, amazingly
While I can't evade her presence.
I let her slip in as close as breath.
She studied the secrets of life and death.
But little did I know, from her clanging accent,
That every girl in Michigan was her sister.
The walls don't respond, except with billboards
Of other lives imagined by advertising dreamers
As my happiness: couples on beaches,
Couples in pools, by mountains, in cars,
In frozen moments one never remembers
In any real way, when they really happen.
Keep dreaming, Bill, they say, keep dreaming,
All that is not you can be yours;
The person in half-life inside you cannot be as real
As what the TV, newspapers, sweatshirts display
So I play, becoming, in the process, an expert in
Late antiquity, and NCAA hockey spreads in Vegas,
The different brands of granite in airport men's rooms...
—But that which is closest, women scorned and chosen,
Emotions stranded, unable to land, the long string of unspoken
Betrayals, coins tossed at the fountain of experience—
These cannot be resolved or understood,
In any real way, when they really happen.
Keep dreaming, Bill, they say, keep dreaming,
All that is not you can be yours;
The person in half-life inside you cannot be as real
As what the TV, newspapers, sweatshirts display
So I play, becoming, in the process, an expert in
Late antiquity, and NCAA hockey spreads in Vegas,
The different brands of granite in airport men's rooms...
—But that which is closest, women scorned and chosen,
Emotions stranded, unable to land, the long string of unspoken
Betrayals, coins tossed at the fountain of experience—
These cannot be resolved or understood,
They can only be turned into fantasy
To be turned into the real.
Models pretending to be people, airbrushed more beautiful,
Places flattered into light that would make Fragonard jealous,
Not the misery recalled as I passed the street she lived on,
Or the theatre we shared, or the thoughts she prompted
When we were open to anything—now closed, with only faces
On a screen, of child molesters, rapists and notable brides.
The way she looked at me, with what she needed in return
—It wasn't love, it was only what we wanted it to be,
Something to make us feel like the other side of postcards.
There's unfocused, unreconcilable anger in the tumbling skies,
Whipping ice against the windows, which flicker
With images the people stare at blankly, from the monitor:
Seals who've mysteriously taken over a public beach.
To be turned into the real.
Models pretending to be people, airbrushed more beautiful,
Places flattered into light that would make Fragonard jealous,
Not the misery recalled as I passed the street she lived on,
Or the theatre we shared, or the thoughts she prompted
When we were open to anything—now closed, with only faces
On a screen, of child molesters, rapists and notable brides.
The way she looked at me, with what she needed in return
—It wasn't love, it was only what we wanted it to be,
Something to make us feel like the other side of postcards.
There's unfocused, unreconcilable anger in the tumbling skies,
Whipping ice against the windows, which flicker
With images the people stare at blankly, from the monitor:
Seals who've mysteriously taken over a public beach.
