The rest of this poem
is about hunger.
The balance of days spent
like a broken-down watch.
Useless and silent.
Seething in an armchair
for things I dare not name.
I fear to give them shape
in this dark closet of time
spent abroad from you.
At night, trancing
among the stars,
my soul suspended:
peeking through
the rough glass of home.
I find you waiting. For me.
For a letter never posted,
never written. Never wrought
out of my reluctant heart,
the comfortable misery
of regret and waste.
But you are dangerous,
feline, abundant. I fear
you still. I shall not
speak. Mending time.
Snowdrifts of mail, postcards and bills
precipitate my typewriter keys.
It is June, with three weeks worth
of bills, all to be paid in the space of a day.
Wish you were here at the table that
steadies the bills, your postcards
from far away, my life; my battered
word steed, waiting for you to press its keys.
It's not for nothing I write. Connection
with the writer in you, your fingerprints
pressing on mine, sensuously. Vicariously.