NUMBERS

 

How many years, brother, since the world of our birth stamped us and walked away? How can it be the year of your death again, so soon? As your dates fade, so do my own; the line between those dates the smallest bridge we'll ever hope to cross. Your place of address likewise has disappeared, along with telephone, labor union, and social security numbers; the baseball statistics you mapped meticulously when we were kids. What good are such figures now, and what good the weight and measurements of the body? Every number fades, every combination cancelling the other, until all that remains is an empty circle leading back and back to the inscrutable, singular You.

IF INDEED THERE IS A BODY

 If indeed there is a body

behind your body

and a body behind mine,

I wonder if they meet,

exchange stories or regrets,

touch without want or expectation;

or if they have reached an

understanding we never could,

where a shout is merely

an exclamation of joy

and that shroud of silence

merely the agreement

of all senses at once.

VALENTINE

 

The valentine I wrote for you just walked out the door, unfinished, with the unblinking haste of a lover scorned. God only knows where it's headed, or what it was thinking. It's snowing now -- thick, wet parentheses encompassing every breath, the wind throwing short, hard blasphemies at no one in particular. It's easy for something so small to get lost. Nevertheless, I hope it reaches you, fluttering and modest beyond reason, yet insistent enough that you bring it in -- out of kindness or curiosity -- from the unremitting cold.