Skip to main content

quiet here in the dark

Michael  McNeilley       

wishing I had something to
say to you
that something had happened I
could relate
some thing you would find interesting if
you were here
but nothing keeps happening in almost
fall still
you sit in my head waiting or
I think this
since I never know when you
will appear
but you always do eventually
unexpectedly
and I find I remember things
about you
things I do not know though it is nice
to think of them
and I go back to cutting up onions
making coffee
it occurs to me to smoke but I light
the filter
that burned taste like the one firemen
have always
with them you can remember tastes
you know
like I remember you standing naked
in my bathroom
you or your shadow at the window
the light
a halo through your hair watching
the moon and
as you can taste perfume if you get
close enough
you can taste sweat if the air
is still enough
from across the room across
years you
can know from what is spoken
what remains
unspoken you can try to put these
things away
but for me closing my eyes is
better to let
these things flow over me like standing
in warm summer
rain the cold only later when the
wind rises

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Moonflowers

It's as if the dark, which had before just been context, gave to vulnerability a permission, almost: fleshy saucers of spilled cream, so many parchment fists, unfisting; and now, in pieces, the delicate mask of an indifference offered radically up against what, each time, seems as unthinkable, as unexpected, as when, in the long dream of retraction, that sea that is finally not a sea, but what else to call it, begins again its shifting, and though to every push of the will forward there's something noble—which is to say, something lonely, also—it's too late. Carl Phillips Speak Low Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Caffeine

Because you do not know me, Francezca, you have every reason to be afraid— afraid because, while you are sleeping, I can be the moon, peeping in from out your window like some lonely lunar voyeur, or some rusty blade or kitchen knife when you feel like ending your life with a quick slash or laceration; because, when you wake up, I can be the toothbrush dangling silently in your bathroom, or the forlorn cotton bud preparing to rid your ears of dust and excessive earwax. This is no time to relax, Francezca— I can be anywhere anytime, anyone and anything you cannot even begin to imagine: the whipped cream on your waffle, the mothballs in your closet, the card tag of your tea bag, the jaundiced shade of moonlight, the moon-cake you hate, the steady staccato of rain, the flush’s fecal fouette, the hair inside your nose, your lip, your mole, black hair and brown irises, white teeth and red gums, your scalp, your skin, even your toenails. What is scary, Francezca, is the fact that you don’t e...

Discovery

I believe in the great discovery. I believe in the man who will make the discovery. I believe in the terror of the man who will make the discovery. I believe in the pallor of his face, the nausea, the cold sweat on his lip. I believe in the burning of the notes, the burning of them ashes, the burning of every last one. I believe in the scattering of the numbers, the scattering of them with no regret. I believe in the quickness of the man, the precision of his movements, his uncoerced free will. I believe in the smashing of the tablets, the pouring out of the liquids, the extinguishing of the ray. I assert that all will work out, and that it will not be too late, and that things will unfold in the absence of witnesses. No one will find out, of that I am sure, neither wife nor wall, not even bird, for it may well sing. I believe in the stayed hand, I believe in the ruined career, I believe in the wasted labor of many years. I believe in the secret taken to the grave. For me these words ...