Visitor

No one has need to sit. I let them lean,
hold up the walls, pin down the carpet. Chairs
are soft and bent and welcome secrets shared
with unsuspecting ears. You used to twist
your hat brim, scuffed in scraped and bruising fists
like baseballs newly umpired in, or fit
the cap snug down, whichever knee would hold
it while your fingers plucked the fraying crease

of pants you could afford to throw away.
Just three years late I banished chairs. My knees
will be the only bent ones here. My soles
the only ones exposed. No one stays long,
so uninvited stiff, head tilting down
to see only my crown, my sullen skull.

Everybody says I love you

I used to say I love you. Plain
speech made sense back when I loved you
and more when I didn’t. Again
I said it. Again. As if new
sentiment could grow out from that
same old, tired phrase. As if, after
something we weren’t looking at
aged and died, I could see laughter

lines at your eyes to match my own.
Again. Again. I love you. Doubt
is not a word that thrives alone,
but in pairs. Speak some fact about

the sky, my eyes, some prickling purpled heather—
I love you. How these lies lie light as feather

Passages

Just yesterday, the parchy leaves
scuttled crabwise here between
the wall and wall and sidewalk dust.

Then, we wondered if it could rain.
If rain meant something else than water,
if rain meant a bright hot sky. Now

the bricks gleam wet, crustacean leaves
guttered, gone. Here is nothing but
the wall and wall and sidewalk man

in the cold shelter of the wall,
smelling of firecrackers, wanting heat.