Poet's Farewell

POET'S FAREWELL

Remember that hot little theater,
where something made of shadow
that I sensed
was an old woman
had stood so close to me,
and touched me
on the shoulder
warmly maternal?

God,how close we must have been
to a portal,
to the edge of the veil.

Somehow my intense emotions
had reasonated into
a spiritual stilleto,
and poked a tiny rip
in time.

Your hands soft and moist
had clasped mine
as we viewed
that minor D.H.Lawrence mini-epic,
and I watched you
watching
that young actor playing protaginist,
witness to your naked joy
as to his handsome leaness;
and I sensed the tension
in you
as you projected beyond
the flickering frames of film,
to a scene that you knew
would follow;
a familiar scene.

Your large well lit living room,
painted stark white,
with us reclining
on an off-white overstuffed sofa,
with your gray tabby rubbing roughly
on my pant's leg,
or curling up near me,
studying me
with loving yellow cat's eyes.

Even as I read to you
last weeks lyrical lines,
the staccato of your bright red high heels
flashing under your fashion levis,
with us strolling silently,
Wallingford's wide sidewalks,
staring wide eyed
at woodframe Victorian castles,
became
a melody of cleats,
reminescent of a slow passionate flamenco
rapping out
a steady Andalusian beat,
against the cracked concrete
of many colors.

You did hold hands with me,
as I read,
but you didn't want to,
and I should have been
more cognizant,
and less absorbed in the power
of poetry.

For an eon,
each of us occupyed
opposite ends of the couch,
and the space between us
stretched into the blur
of a great distance.

Still
I struggled to recapture the cuff
of your soul,
but by the end of the scene,
as dawn approached,
the moment faded
and I felt the blood ebb
into a low place
in my aching chest.

It was very cold driving
south that Sunday
just before sunrise,
and the heater in my car
could not break the chill,
and my tiny headlamps
were barely able to pierce
the gloom
of that farewell.


Glenn Buttkus 1987