Still Waters

I could make a guitar weep 

Make a violin scream 

A loving voice, a beckon 

To grief 

If I knew how to play them. 

I watch the Orchestra 

Through a screen 

Instead. 

Paint my nails black 

Walk the alley

And seek that pain 

Behind the Jazz club. 

Where the brass band 

Park their dying cars--

And no one finds success. 

Fields of wildflowers 

Could bend in the wind 

For me

Under a stormy sky 

In desperate wait 

For the coming rain--

If I knew how to tell them. 

The sun hurts my eyes 

Dull and irritable. 

Like every day I avoid 

Shrink into the night 

Cast off all my burdens to

The woman in the lobby

Of a hotel, tired and 

Up all night--

Convinced she

Would want to greet me 

As I opened my mouth 

In a certain kindness--

If I knew which one she needed.

I recognize her 

In the lines of her eyes 

She looks nothing 

Like me.

I love her at a distance 

The only distance I

Know how to give people--

And like people do 

She loves me 

At a distance too.