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Loneliness
The fissured sidewalk reminds me
Of the calluses on my fingers.
We do similar work,
The giving and taking of pangs
To change here into there.
We come home to the same welcome.
We bear our loud blows in silence,
But mine do not dissipate
As quickly as they sound.
Darkness rises up, like a smoke,
From our weary cracks after dusk.
Standing in it, I feel a vibration
Like a frustrated question
Answering itself with itself
(and what even is the question?).
It stops if I walk, so I often do.
The touch of wood, metal, and cardboard
Throbs in echoes in my hands, which
Have become wood, metal, and cardboard.
They seem so ugly to me.
I do not think that she would like them,
That freckled woman in the hoodie
With a weary way about herself,
Who held the door too early and then
Pretended to check a watch
As she tick-tocked her head,
And then summoned everything to chuckle
Only for the man to ignore her as he passed.
The way the weariness returned to her face
But transformed again into patience
For the cashier who spoke no English,
Helps me to formulate that vibrating question,
And the answer to it too.
But I do not think that she would like my hands,
My hands not made of leaves, dirt, and horsehair,
And which do not tingle with the gathering
Of greens and yellows into baskets,
My hands of rust, diesel, and dust,
Which shut off the lonely light switch,
And discern no pay-off in the darkness
Shaped like an unused piano.
