The ringer of doorbells and spontaneous odes
Cries for the necessity of arrival
In pigeon-toed inward turns
Where you had stepped before, the unfamiliar center
Brandished with talc for your own white-gloved inspection
Of what you suspected but suspended in disbelief
Your sangfroid as they twisted on the spits of all trades,
For something acknowledged in the vast warm night
Instead of suppositions and defenses, the deafening roar
Of denial, the removal of the plastic sheets
To expose what isn't there any more, no loquacious host
To steer away the hostility with a stiff breeze
Or drink, the anchors aboard that weigh but stay in closets
Gutted for memorabilia, the sharp reminders
Of our short stay above board, in the white
Open where nobody cared, and it didn't
Make a difference which side you chose,
No one would judge you for not knowing,
They just sat there satiated with the hum of life
As it moved through their shivering timbers
That conflate fact with rapture, dream state
With waking nightmare, without lucid witnesses
To prescribed perfections any more, just the usual
Assortment of odds and friends
And a few with actual lives, meaning hitched,
Thus eternally dream deferential.
The shop worn disequilibrium haws.
Who do you assuage? Who do you claim?
Which one of us is guilty more of ignoring the other
At every decision point? The fault's
Not in ourselves but in the stars
We ignore at our own peril, for no one else
Can hear their voices but you, disbeliever, transgressor for fun
On their sacred rites, always a play
For murder when you can't make them go your way.
If they're that stupid, you say, of course they don't deserve
To live.
