The Thinking Plain (On the Way to Lyons)

 

there will be a moment,
a true salacious common
feeling, & there is a name
for it (I always forget,
a technique for the written)
to jump to the future looking
back, to spell out all the good
that came of one choice
marked in past notes, slipped
under tables, folded innumerably
into smaller & smaller revelations;
something there was emptied
not broken, (sometimes I stand
in the middle of the golden
field, like Alice, waiting for
the rabbit, or the white bolt
of lightning, the black sash
to hem the time made by watches
worn by wrists or in pockets;
I suddenly wake up older,
withholding a confession:
I will never be good at
saying "no" to you with
any proper conviction &
even more shocking, I
like that about myself. It feels
honest, like doing laundry)
I know where we might have
our rare conversations, waiting
to be tread on by barefooted
inebriation, alibis, sarsaparilla
frantic affectation, sharing air
like trees, & alliteration,
all things opened; all things
start with the honeybee & it's
loose & drunken pollen.