Startled by Existence

or – Kerry and the kids go on a vacation, without me --- kind of. (7/01)

This ghost of me, that is not me

goes every where you go;

This ghost of you that is not you

saddles with my very eyes

and whispers in my vision.

 

What shall we say of such a Being:

It is one times two,

It is two pressed together, twined,

It is you in me and me in you.

 

It is one.

 

I have about me

this me-ness.

You have about you

this you-ness.

But you have climbed

through every portal of sense

until

no other face

no other voice

no other force of habit,

No other picture of

what a woman looks like

can survive.

 

Now that you are far away

I think sometimes about our children.

I reproduce their faces,

for the moment.

 

But what's this phantom

that has leached the very cells

of my inner eye?

 

I blink,

and behold your fleeting face

traced hot like the spot of a bulb.

 

Will I return the favor?

 

Will I lift your eyes with wonder,

to the crashing surf – will you see strange things

within the clouds? Will my face flicker

like a strobe between the frames?

 

And now – I hear you

singing in the background,

I touch your strong face and back,

But you are more than sculpture

that I turn on the stage of my inner mind;

 

You are branded in my brain and I feel you thinking with me:

 

SO … Should I buy the delicious milk?

Or sacrifice my pleasure

for the One-percent?