Looking Away

image borrowed from Bing

Looking Away

you would look at me
and it never occurred to me
that you might be choosing
the man of your life

you would look at me
over the bottles and the corpses
and I thought
you must be playing with me

you must think I'm crazy enough
to step behind your eyes
into the open elevator shaft

so I looked away
and I waited
until you became a palm tree

or a crow

or the vast grey ocean of wind
or the vast grey ocean of mind

now look at me
married to everyone but you.


Leonard Cohen

from BOOK OF LONGING.