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first I was given centuries
to wait in caves, in leather
tents, knowing you would never come back
    Then it speeded up: only
several years between
the day you jangled off
into the mountains, and the day (it was
spring again) I rose from the embroidery
frame at the messenger’s entrance.
    That happened twice, or was it
more; and there was once, not so
long ago, you failed,
and came back in a wheelchair
with a moustache and a sunburn
and were insufferable.
    Time before last though, I remember
I had a good eight months between
running alongside the train, skirts hitched, handing
you violets in at the window
and opening the letter; I watched
your snapshot fade for twenty years.
    And last time (I drove to the airport
still dressed in my factory
overalls, the wrench
I had forgotten sticking out of the back
pocket; there you were,
zippered and helmeted, it was zero
hour, you said Be
Brave) it was at least three weeks before
I got the telegram and could start regretting.
    But recently, the bad evenings
there are only seconds
between the warning on the radio and the
explosion; my hands
don’t reach you
    and on quieter nights
you jump up from
your chair without even touching your dinner
and I can scarcely kiss you goodbye
before you run out into the street and they shoot

    You refuse to own
yourself, you permit
others to do it for you:
    you become slowly more public,
in a year there will be nothing left
of you but a megaphone
    or you will descend through the roof
with the spurious authority of a
government official,
blue as a policeman, grey as a used angel,
having long forgotten the difference
between an annunciation and a parking ticket
    or you will be slipped under
the door, your skin furred with cancelled
airmail stamps, your kiss no longer literature
but fine print, a set of instructions.
    If you deny these uniforms
and choose to repossess
yourself, your future
    will be less dignified, more painful, death will be sooner,
(it is no longer possible
to be both human and alive): lying piled with
the others, your face and body
covered so thickly with scars
only the eyes show through.

    We hear nothing these days
from the ones in power
    Why talk when you are a shoulder
or a vault
    Why talk when you are
helmeted with numbers
    Fists have many forms;
a fist knows what it can do
    without the nuisance of speaking:
it grabs and smashes.
    From those inside or under
words gush like toothpaste.
    Language, the fist
proclaims by squeezing
is for the weak only.

    You did it
it was you who started the countdown
    and you conversely
on whom the demonic number
zero descended in the form of an egg
bodied machine
coming at you like a
football or a bloated thumb
    and it was you whose skin
fell off bubbling
all at once when the fence
accidentally touched you
    and you also who laughed
when you saw it happen.
    When will you learn
the flame and the wood/flesh
it burns are whole and the same?
    You attempt merely power
you accomplish merely suffering
    How long do you expect me to wait
while you cauterize your
senses, one
after another
turning yourself to an
impervious glass tower?
    How long will you demand I love you?
    I’m through, I won’t make
any more flowers for you
    I judge you as the trees do
by dying

    your back is rough all
over like a cat’s tongue / I stroke
you lightly and you shiver
    you clench yourself, withhold
even your flesh
outline / pleasure is what
you take but will not accept.
    believe me, allow
me to touch you
gently, it may be the last
    time / your closed eyes beat
against my fingers
I slip my hand down
your neck, rest on the pulse
    you pull away
    there is something in your throat that wants
to get out and you won’t let it.

    This is a mistake,
these arms and legs
that don’t work any more
    Now it’s broken
and no space for excuses.
    The earth doesn’t comfort,
it only covers up
if you have the decency to stay quiet
    The sun doesn’t forgive,
it looks and keeps going.
    Night seeps into us
through the