Sunday, October 08, 2006

poem for the maybes

awsome stuff.

poem for the maybes
vrai

this is a poem for the maybes. not the yeses,
whose morning breath you taste on the hundredth day of hundreds,
but the ones you married or loved or betrayed in some other universe,
first time she wore it a rumbly stereo broadcast long slow notes and you
took her lonely hand, moved it over her head to spin her
and her hem in imperfect ellipses. you were barefoot;
she is taller than you.


there are jealousy plays, kiss-me-i'm-lonelys, a boy with things to say
and no one to understand them, you with no one to understand. you have
fumbled for fascinating answers to smalltalk questions from a girl you only want
in order to drive the girl you love as mad as she's driven you.


and you will, and you will,
smudge the line between maybe and yes--it's something about knowing
maybes are not afraid of the dark. maybes do not have favorite colors.
maybes have freckles, tequila breath, guilt, a pair of shoes
that, when you see them again on someone else, will make you pause. "don't"
in the air they exhale, or "in four decades, when we are old
and have forgotten one another and met again"


maybes are the ones you speak to as though nothing has happened.
maybes are the ones you'll never see again.
you know you've tasted him, but can't imagine the metaphor you
might've thought of to describe it. spent a night with her watching stars,
and all you can remember is how you told the story later.

wen at 1:03 AM

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