When I peek at my emotions, they laugh at me,
as my girlfriend did in 2003.
We were tourists on the Champs-Elysees.
I was in a wholly anxious mood that day.
And later, on the same subject, when she cried,
I thought, “was it her—or her emotions—which lied?”
Emotions will rescue us from thought—
in my life, a good emotion had been long sought.
I had been too timid, but experience at last
revealed the sad emotional error of my past.
My melancholy had kept me from thoughtful action—
instead I scrutinized the forms of attraction
in the most powerful aesthetic manner—
a lover! a tune! I heard one giggling around every corner.
Whole notes were in the wind. I heard quarter notes descending
in random gatherings of trucks and men,
a melody in every noise, and so far
poems overflowing the trunk of every used car
tell me what everyone is thinking, and who they are.
I’ve been punched, disdained by the smart;
a wheel was shouting on my broken shopping cart.
I looked at you blankly. You smiled. I winked and tapped my heart.
Vaguely inappropriate. Specifically, a poem began to start.