A Poem by O.G. Rose
Not all gifts are received
(take the present).
An unset soul:
a face with a reverse frown or smile
made of unfinished holes.
What do I love when I love
a missing person?
Not the whimpers of wheels grinding down
city streets; not the smell of cooking steak
near Peter Luger; not the taste
from small kisses on a hand.
And yet. And yet.
There is no limit to the number
of holes in one. Alone
is a name of God. For every-thee,
every bell tolls, though one shovel of dirt,
love-filled, if closest to hating,
could fall in. I am
by my-self, sitting on the cold sub-way,
wearing a tight out-fit, a suit with a tie
which signals that this is where I belong,
a product of pre-veiling
(do any schoolchildren know
where they head?)
I am surrounded,
but most people are kind
with whom we don’t live.
Be-side(s) me
ponders you — nothing changes —
beach clothes, longer hair —
the one who said to burn off everything
that couldn’t be reborn
and did.
But I was set.
I chose a moving city,
a job, a particular option to live daily,
personalized in my own
way and preference. Responsible, I am,
so if there is an inner Ivan
who wants to return his ticket —
no offer.
As necessary for the money,
which I never thought of as a drug,
this repetitive commute is long
in its five minutes. “Patient” is the word for waiting,
as if stillness a doctor and seeing you
a medi(c/t)ation for assisted dying
(to self).
You told me to visit Florida,
the oldest city in the county of light on a hill,
to enjoy the thundering bangs in bed, the rains
across skin, the passions from roots
growing deeper in the urban author
of confessions:
That’s where the one you could love
lived.
The sub-way ceases to move
us. I arrive where I can walk
to a prestigious bank college students dream
of working at, college students who
were once children dreaming of college,
believing there was no higher path.
Your face vanishes
when I stand — winter coat, short hair —
and walk out of the mirrors on the wall
and ceiling, installed for safety’s sake, and upside down,
in the air, shape-distorted —
longing lips.
.
.
.
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