88. Footfalls in the Dark

You are behind me:
I know it’s you.
The balmy night-time
buzzes in a certain way
with a certain electricity;

I half-smile to myself:
you’re running.
The pitter-patter
draws nearer, closer,
and I don’t know if I am supposed
to turn or not…

but I do.

And I can see your huge grin
light up the midsummer
night.

I’m smiling too.
Our rhythms meld to one,
as your footfalls slow and mine
quicken again.

Our footfalls ring in the dark,
together;
we could be mistaken for one
person.

We walk together for only
moments, twenty-three steps,
before we part ways
and you drive off, in your
car:

and I am alone.
I am not sure whether to feel
ecstatic or dejected,
but I continue walking:
footfalls still ring out in the
silent, muggy night;
but they belong to me,
and no one is chasing after me
now.

87. Striped in Sunlight

Striped in sunlight,
half-awakened from a dreamless sleep,
I have entered another world:
sun feels warm on my naked
legs,
oxygen soft and
still.
Birds are tittering lazily;
I don’t know what they’re saying
either:
children are playing in the park near-
by;

and I am here,
listening to the cars go
by.
There is such a sense of
“now”,
but it is sad also,
knowing such instances
will be remembered forever,
though never occur the same way
twice –

86. Aleatory

Silence:
What happens now?

Croce e delizia…
there are no rules in this
undefined space.
When a second becomes an
eternity
and all time is contained in
this infinite
moment.

Tongue-tied,
yet having too much to say,
perhaps it’s best to remain silent
in the secret, secret night,
aware and at the same time
delirious in this
unquantifiable
bliss.

85. Mogliettina

When he was here, he would
call me “piccina mogliettina”,
“olezza di verbena”,
charmed me with his suave
Italian, American English, or
whatever…

Where is he now, Butterfly,
where is he fucking now?
Butterfly, you are young, you are
lithe and
beautiful;

take these foolish dreams of
youth and pretty
words, and live a long and
happy life.

As you enter Act II,
don’t you realize, he’s
boinking someone else
back in the States?
Isn’t this how it always
is?

84. Tosca is Lost

Tosca is lost:
Tosca is lost!
Tosca is lost at the grocery.
Tosca is lost;
Tosca is confused –
the flyers said the mushrooms were on
sale today;
Tosca does not even like mushrooms,
but Tosca does not like this new diet
either;

Tosca is lost:
Tosca is lost;
all is lost at the
checkout line.
Tosca glares enviously at the row next to
hers;
fatsos with pounds upon
pounds of
FOOD.
Tosca wishes she could still eat that much,
picks up a magazine to distract
herself;
skinny bitch, this is what she’s become
too;
Tosca throws it down;
gastric bypass wasn’t such a good
idea…

Tosca is lost,
Tosca is lonely.
Tosca is not liking the piles of music left unread on the couch.
Tosca takes her up her
Scarpia (little yipper) in her
weary arms;
groceries will wait…
Tosca is lost,
but Tosca listens to her
doctor.

Tosca is lost,
Tosca is out of breath:
Tosca has gotten herself lost in -
Central Park; Tosca is not used to this -
exercise thing -
Tosca sits on a bench,
jealously watching the runners jog
by.
Goddamn, your glistening bodies are
perfect, stop flaunting them at
me!
Tosca does not -
understand -
why people continue -
to masochistically -
put themselves through Hell when -
they already look like the -
Greek pantheon,
maybe
better –

Tosca is lost…
Tosca is lost…
Tosca dreams she is a
skinny model, impossible size
-2,
walking down the catwalks in
Milano,
but the audience is not applauding.
They want her to sing, but
Tosca –
Tosca can’t –
she can’t sing a
Goddamn
note!

BEEPBEEPBEEP!
Tosca is late!

Tosca is found,
Tosca is found in the dressing room.
Tosca to stage in 5.
Tosca slips her black wig
over her itchy hairnet,
tiara in place, red gown wrinkle
free, clip-on diamond
earrings on each
lobe;
scales run themselves automatically
in her insured throat.
“Vissi d’arte, vissi d’arte…”
she finds herself chanting,
adding “Fuck Scarpia” in between
iterations, for good measure.
Tosca to stage, Tosca to stage.

Tosca is found, Tosca is finally
found, running dramatically,
breathlessly onto stage:
Tosca sings, Tosca
Goddamn sings the
bleeding chunks
away.

Deborah Voigt's transformation.
Left: Aida, 2011 (before).
Right: Salome, 2006 (after).

83. The Hermit Rediscovers Humanity

Such beauty:
leaves shimmer with unspoken secrecy;
dragonflies dance in iridescent hues.
Languishing under shade beneath the
mid-noon oak
there is joy, and
peace.

But another human eye,
like mine;
an arm, a mouth,
all like mine:
movement, speech –
like mine:

this is some strange and clever game!

Unlike trees with their sullen rules,
suns with their odious paths:
I am mystified, baffled by this
unpredictability, this
depth and unobservable,
attainable mystery –

and for you to feel the
same;
to feel the world begin anew with
me:

is this what every being
should desire!

Emerging from my vigil
of the bottom of the
lake;
Rusalka, selkie, Naiad:
return from the lonely depths
and regard these
creatures silently,

transfixed:
it is no wonder they have risked their
fragile hearts and sparkling realms for
centuries:
to live and breathe and love –
how grand!

82. Crows and the Dandelions

Two crows amongst the yellow flames;
the sun of May ignites their black:
I am mystified.

Oft I have seen such beauty,
as the dandelions peek their ready heads
above the warming
Earth:

as the dandelions grow, and live, and die,
and when at last their heads
grow old, bequeath their silken seeds
to summer days
to air, to chubby hands of
wobbling tots

and as the crows pick worms beside the
dying weeds,
so I grow older, suns continue in their
traversal ‘cross the
skies:

yet -
I am part of these
eternal rhythms,
a part of this lovely and
ephemeral world,
beginning on uncertain paths
as a fluff of dandelion seed,
having brief moments to
fly, and land, and live, and die;
but long enough to feel the air
& see the open sky.

81. Sitting on the Grand Canyon

I have a picture of you,
seated on a precarious ledge
teetering above the Grand Canyon.
You are smiling backwards,
thumbs up –
unabashed,
exhilarated.

I want to reach out to you in this dead, frozen
moment:
you are more alive than you have ever
been;
but I want to warn you, pull you back,
take you into my anxious arms,
and it saddens me:
you are happier here
than you ever were with
me.

Which reassures me
that I made the correct moral
choice,
to relinquish you,
to let you be happy
and dangerous
without
meddling
me.

Why must we love?
Why must we remember,
and never forget?
What makes us continue living
when there is so little
to live
for – ?

80. Forgetting

I am always forgetting my dreams these
days.
Late hours, inattentiveness,
maybe –
or, I have also read:
impoverished dreaming indicates poor mental
health, or lack
thereof.
My dreams these days are
infrequent,
sporadic,
blurry and
meaningless.

Hazy vignettes of the
past,
strange scenes of things that cannot
be.

If my reality does not
compute, how can I –
how can I expect
my madness to be any
clearer?

79. It is a cold day today

I want to be as assured as
Emily.
To say, each day, “This is
who I am;
I am not afraid of existing
alone –
I have something to
say – ”

Me,
I am insecure,
lonely,
vulnerable,
Seeking the empty world
yet disenchanted.
I have grown sick of
these robust, certain paths,

but I do not like wandering:
I would maybe have preferred
never to have encountered the
happy follies,
else I am always watching
out my slanted window,
desiring, yearning
for things that never
satisfy me, only
show me how
different I
am,
and must
be.

78. Stage Fright

Years of security,
self-assurance
vanish in a single moment:
the pre-destined moment arrives
and we are panic-stricken,
paralyzed.

These people are no longer the
friendly folk we have come to know.
They are sharks, and we are
tiny,
tiny,
swallowed up.

But we force ourselves out again,
back into public view.
And by brute force,
overcome our fears,
become ourselves;

and each time becomes
easier and
easier,
until we recover,
and become ourselves once more,
or at least
mostly
so.

77. Training wheels

Training wheels come off today:
waiting, anticipation…
it’s pretty easy in fact;
Dad knows how.

Mom & Dad are supportive;
parking lot of an abandoned
workplace:
Saturdays are for
learning.

Fresh start, they say:
wobbling along on just
2 wheels:
the world is topsy-
turvy
now.

Fall this way,
fall that way:
eventually
we straighten out on our own
path;
then we are finally able to
ride circles
‘round our own parents;

but Mom & Dad
will always watch us
from the sidelines,
cheering, gasping, crying:
always supportive.

until the day
they cannot come to watch us anymore
and then even the wheels we have
come off

and we must learn
everything over
again