2060. BEHIND IT NO MEANING AT ALL

BEHIND IT NO

MEANING AT ALL
I washed my face in a legion of doubt and came
away holding a candle. The books we'd been reading
were still on the table, open, just as we had left
them. Aristotle on stasis, and some guy from the
middle east writing about Love. What a tale my
thoughts could tell. If you could read my mind love.
All these words; they get jumbled up like I'm
doing a puzzle my mind had made itself. I really
don't want that tree there, but there it is. Last
January 2nd I went to a cold burial on a wicked
hill. Someone had died, as they all do, in the
week between Christmas and then. It little
mattered anyway because, by the time we
were done, the snow had covered it all back up.
We drove away like pilgrims headed to a feast.
Hot food in a wintry redoubt, a roadside inn with
vast mountains behind it. I could never find it again.
-
I blush when I think of you, and what we did. Not
really, but whatever. My magazine mind can take
you all apart and put you right together again. I
look at your red lips and wish that they were mine.
Now, too late, that candle I mentioned is burning
down and hot wax is hurting my hand. I rub it out
with an old dry cloth : it too catches fire as I hold it.
-
Jesus Christ this is a wond'rous life,
with behind it no meaning at all.