Four/Three

I
The yellow light seeps out the lamp
through the space between
my apartment wall and the wall next door
and into my bedroom window
onto your hair
golden, tossed upon the pillow
as you sleep beneath my arm,
and I wish that I could sleep,
but my head is wrapped around
hours before
on the step
in the space between
my apartment wall and the wall next door
as you peered through
Chicago's fog of lamps
“look, there's still four stars here”
but I only could make out three.

II
(A street sign
scribbled out
in an alphabet
I never learned
directs one way
then another
then another
then...
we'll follow them
until we get lost
or at least until
the meter runs out)

III
I walk into the street
the driving cars unwatched by my eye
as it stares to the ground before my feet
and why don't I look where I'm going
or what do I think I'm doing
or I could get myself killed
but my eyes have always been
easily distracted
by the thoughts that plague my mind
either those of joy
(walking arm in arm with one you love)
or those of pain
(what is owed, what is earned,
the difference, and the deficit)

IV
A man staggers in
as I wait to use the sink
a cigarette in his mouth, unlit,
and he spills his excess into the urinal
and staggers out
the cigarette unlit still
hanging loosely from his lip
held by some miracle
and I, passed by, laugh to myself
at the disinterest he held
in his disinterested hands
as he walked out of the door
and into the City of Life
with his eyes half closed
to the miracle that kept
his cigarette in his mouth.

But we,
so open are our eyes that we
can't help but see the Hand
that holds our hands
as we say our goodbyes.

V
Across the table
each nose in a book
you'll laugh
and I'll ask
and you'll read a phrase
and I
on the other side
simply try
to make sense of Eliot.
('Lord, I am not worthy,
Lord, I am not...')
because for all my ears
I'll never hear
all that the Thunder had to say
(but Lord! how I long to quote it)

VI
Wrapped in a sheet
I could not move
e'en to kiss your head
for exhausted as I was
my eyes could not
for more than a minute
look upon your face
which smiled with my prodding
and said, 'nathaniel,
don't ask questions'
implying that
I already know their answers
And you know as well as I
I just need to make sure,
but no one can be sure—that's sure—
and you never really know
until you know
(but you never know)

VII
And I dread to go back to this apartment
so much emptier now from your leaving
knowing that I'll have to face
that all I've said is okay
is not okay.

(But it's okay.)