COULD I JUST TALK TO YOU?

for K.S.

forever,
if I promise
not to take up
too much
of your time?
would you hold
my hand
in your strong
workmanlike hand and fingers
and squeeze
when I come
to the hard parts?
could I smell
the sawdust
in your hair
and count
the callous’
on your palms
while I speak to you
of secrets
and lies
of a heart
that has forgotten
how or why
to beat?
will you allow me to see
how your soul
is ingrained
with what you build
and show me
how you build
your soul
piece by piece while
my fingers feel
the excitement
of your tears
as I trace your mouth
with your own salt?
can I go
yakkity yakking
into the night
while you remind me
where I lost
my place?
can I just talk
forever
with you? I need
little else: food,
water, air are all
so boring,
so superfluous,
so bourgeois and you know
how much I hated and feared being that. I feared that
more than dying--perhaps living
would be better stated, but not better
served. could I
arrive on my word chariot,
my horse’s mouth full
of foam and nostrils flared,
and whisk you off
for however long
forever is?
in this time,
this time now,
I will content myself
by talking
to the strangers
inside me
knowing
with as much surety
as I’ve ever had
that one
of those strangers
is you.



Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2004