How Will You Know Me?
next to the waving person, surrounded by dozens of other waving people,
all of them looking on, watching the doors, waiting for them to open,
attuned to the sudden change in air pressure and eruption
of laughter and perfume, but I myself will not wave.
I have waved before, all to no avail, my gesture
intercepted and absently returned, no use
then to anyone, left to shiver and die
inside my coat pocket, or, even
worse, to live on in shame
and await a second
futile term.
Now, then, how will I know you? How, then,
we two, so soon to meet? Will you wear
what I have sent? And know what I have meant?
Will you be on the train? Oh, it drives me mad, these things!
For I imagine you not at all as you�ve described,
but as a spirit arrived before your mirror,
a scented fable with black hair,
in light adorned.
I pray, too, that you sit alone,
unassailed by a stranger�s
breath, unregaled by
his aimless tongue.
I hate him more
than anyone.
I beg of you,
do not be the first,
that I might live in pain
a little longer. But do not be
the last, for in a crowd dispersed
I fear you will see me for what I am: a fool
who imagines he is cursed, and who has long been mad.
November 9, 2006
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