Short TimeI am haunted by the sadness of men
hanging out at night
in all the parks and alleys of the world.
They wait and meander
weighing
measuring
the safer distance
between dread
and desire.
Every face a catalog of possibilities,
every look a whole vocabulary of need.
Tonight, you are the dream
who walks in my waking sleep,
who bears miraculously
the shape voice motion of remembered love.
How can I resist the reckless
Leap from the world
of furtive bushes and tunnelling headlights,
to this room, no less anonymous,
of thin walls, thinning mattresses,
where we grapple and thrash
like beached sea creatures
breathing the dry unfamiliar air?
When you stand to go, I ease myself
into the hollow your body leaves.
I press the faint smell of you to my face.
O Christ, wer
