Since life is theater, and love is defined as actors expressing love,
I move in cautious secrecy for the sake of my love.
Since my humble love will be mocked as too serious,
And become food for the humorous,
Should my humility ever become known,
I walk in the shadows, humbly, secretly, and alone.
I have seen actors naked on screen and stage,
Marching to love’s music, aching and graphic,
Cleopatra, Romeo, or a shy porn star, dying in a cage,
Or free to walk among us, the healthy, the dying, the sick,
In schools and conferences, the professional setting,
The rich, the poor, lousy poets, having creepy affairs,
The touristy street, the apartment building missing lights,
Climbing, drunk, the seedy last bit of stairs.
Introvert! Don’t obsess on the extrovert’s laughing and forgetting.
I’ve been there; I’ve hurried to fly in the middle of the morning,
Flown all night, arrived in the next incomplete middle of the night, without warning.
Since you put our love in your poetry, I walked away,
So that I could wake up in the morning to a plain day
Dropping into the lake of nature; the tiny, vivid frogs
Calling back and forth a green comfort to me
In a quiet, final reminder of nature, no drama, or poetry,
Just green; green lakes, green streams flowing into green bogs.
All seek comfort: half-sacred, purely profane,
Love in various best sellers and guises, difficult, insane;
The more we write or talk about it, the worse it gets.
The public proclaims news, principles, God, the New York Mets.
I reject every advantage, comparison, thought, weight,
In my frail solitude. Call it loneliness, love, indifference, hate.
I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you, or let you know.
It’s my fault. I know this better than anyone. Please go.
I’m doing a little thinking. I’m thinking how
I can express how much I love you. I may. But not now.