The time:
the day after happiness --
a day when everything is so painful
that we talk about the weather
that is, if it's nice out
the contrast to yesterday
is not the worst day of all
but a nothing day
like always
I watch the people:
the tall one -
there -
he doesn't walk
he floats down the hallway
he doesn't know how she
watches him
another girl joins another guy
they talk
she nears closer -
as if to touch -
but draws back
somehow, she sees the futility
of it all
and another hurts
as he watches her eyes
as she watches, and feels for
something she cannot have
don't think she doesn't know
he's watching
but she goes for the lesser of the
two futile pursuits
people chase,
people follow,
people watch while others gain
he is always better off than you
he gets your goal
but you get his
there are no answers
the time:
another desperate day
two would-be lovers try to find a way
to bridge the gap
two has-been lovers try to find a way
to bridge a different gap
two friends walk in silence
and here, the place:
a musty garden
with rust-covered trees
and moldy daffodils -
no place for the innocent
surrounded by the Institution,
the garden sweats in anticipation
of a light
but today, the rabbits are eaten
by the stale air
and become cannibals
and the inevitable last rabbit trips,
and chokes on a stray piece of barbed wire
oh yes,
it does die
and if you walk through there, sometime
you will find strange remnants
you will see long hairs -
or antennae -
12 inches or more
or a black, broken, half-digested wing
but no source,
only the terrifying guess of what
crime had occurred there
at the center of the garden,
the one object that retains any beauty
is an emerald-green beetle shell,
proving that something good did
live there once
and something good can live there again
but no, children
don't dream of it happening too soon
there is too much death there, now
and the place?
where is the garden?
up here
back, behind my eyes
below my hair
above my neck
within the slosh -
within the place of greatest
scientific awe
it's here
oh yes, it's here
it's all within
alas, my nightmare
and the time:
another nothing day
when the pain is so terrible
that we talk about the weather
that is,
only if it's nice out.
- Dec. 19, 1984, A.D.
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