As Nothing as Silent

For an hour carride without conversation,
I don’t mind slipping in and out of sleep on
the A87. I want our nights aligned again,
the sun sets at ten here.

I have passenger-seat nightmares, I measure
my life in twelve hour chunks during which I
take account of everything except you,
things such as,

how we act under stress, and how I shatter
people when I expect love from them.

I pause in wonder about the different
shades of depression, how laughter of
the joyous, unmarred sort can become
unreachable.

The small panic at the top of my chest,
bolted down as I wait for help,
frantic picnic of the mind—

Will you lock the door after you get in?
I left you spare keys on the table,
I'm crouched down and heaving; your
solidity is a safety net, your body heat
travels through walls. (Your hunger is
satiable; sleep and you will have rest.)

As I wait up I think about ways to knock
myself out. Test me: I am heavy, I sink.

Dirt streaks, little leaves falling into my lap,
screaming birds, loss of inner/outer impermeability,
blisters, and a world without anxiety.
(And trail of blood as I drag my leash behind me.)

Today is the first day that feels like summer.
We limp into the red haze, grass stains cool against my feet,
(losing track of the hours),
(pulling ballpoint pen across skin),
(mistaking beauty for truth).

Storm warning : mirroring;
My father typing erratically : my mother not someone to rely on;
I've taken on exhaustions as I've injection-molded into you;
I'm held together loosely, crumbling,
begging for a storm to cake me,

bind me into glass, something that can be known quickly;
white rain : open window.

I would sometimes wake between sleeps
and see snow,
I would sometimes wake to thunder.

The waiting—suspended: it fills my mind with water.

My memory fails me: was it your father that
smelled of coffee at night? We lay on our
sides, one eye blinded, and I spin
between ghosts.
I enumerate and archive—while she doesn’t
talk to me—what has been spoken,
and though we are not permitted a bed,
this that swallows the night and rouses me
awake, memorialized, can be laid to rest.

I've located the mark on this cloth that could kill me,
the one consolation being that I can't quite articulate it.
Now comes exhaustion to wash it away;
now comes the tidal wave of distance.

There is a happiness floating: the F train into
the city; blissfully;
an inflation, how long can it last?
I am split in two, parched, cracking;
but the sun catches on the forsythia and in
quiet Carnegie Hill I listen only to the vacuuming
next door, and I know it can be sustained.

Here it is again: the richness of life:
early spring, the possibility of God,
memories of pain turned sweet,
dark scatterings snapping into place:
it is a story, it is full-bodied love and loss,
it is walking upright as daylight begins to end: 
a great distance from despair, the relief 
caught in my throat, my light-headed 
wanderings: overflown with piercing aliveness.

How about this? laceration. Wait for the end,
seek the trace of the groove and follow it 
down tracheally and fall, (nice dream),
it is a battery, an endless recycling of misery.
Tie one ribbon-end loosely to the neck, hope to see 
the green edge again; my head toppled,
the waiting over.
Is there intracranial safety? Fold the skin neatly 
into a square, it is not the time for crying.

For your cowering and your breath, unhurried
stases and sorrows, working into the evening,
you come to me like a question, like play,
a pattern to untangle, a landslip.

I don't know how to describe spring to you,
I worry through the night.

I like you covering my heart;
you hold it and show it how to pulse, keep it alive.
I like my motion guided, I like water pouring 
out of my mouth.
I tie the strings around my arms and legs, you
control me. I want you to fix me with your
careful, small hands.
I am glowing from your gaze inside me, the
substance of my being. I like the spotlight.
I like you scaffolding my body;
you hold it upright, beautiful and strong.

You were sitting there looking so sad,
a cyclist stopping for a smoke.
(Is now the time for creation?
You'll go back to the dark room muddied
all over.)
I saw you years ago: that overcast
face, your body like an S. I couldn't explain it,
but I knew your implosions.
You're like a dying roach--your arms so tense,
your voice too soft.
(Can we push on?)
You decline; you're panicking. The shadow
seizes into definition: now we see the ghost
clearly. Now we're in the room with no windows.
Here appear your hollow cheeks, your legs 
bound and hanging like rotisserie.
I try to pull us toward relief, but you just sit 
there, looking so sad.

A silence has ensued,
for her I'd endure the waiting.
Though we pass the time with our heads down,
I know I'm wrong.

love,
suzanne

2021 & 2022.