Puzzle No. 6

III

(I,
I am afraid to begin;
I have always been.)

(If it ever comes, look around the words
for their possibilities.)

(If it’s not for you,
you won’t be able to open it.)

(It will remain useless
like seeds in a package.)

(I,
I had more than this in mind;
I can only remember glimpses now:

Let this couplet pass
beneath feet like grass.

The breath-long hint of some escape,
a keyhole glance into another kind of outside,
distant scents of transcendence.

I look at the tree limbs,
brushed by an airy current,
through the high windows
at the corner of the room.

We have our walls
to contain bits and pieces,
to say where this and that
end and begin.

The door is closed—
the air we breathe
is the same air that
we’ve breathed and breathed again…


What am I missing?
When did I sense the lack?
When I ran around the yard with no clothes like everyone,
we ate wild grapes from neighbor’s fences,
smiled in family photographs.
When was it that I began
to wonder about the things
being poured into me, feeling unfilled?
Kool-Aid and Bible verses,
Birthday parties and happy stories.

On the black, uneven playground
I saw jets cross from one side
of the sky to another
and wondered who was on them.

On Saturday mornings, from bed
I could hear a train whistle
coming from the directions of the mountains,
but never saw tracks or stations.

At five years old, I kissed a girl
on her shoe, underneath the table
and saw a hundred ants
crazy over a sweet lemon drop.

In the smooth face of a girlfriend,
I could see the border of ---------,
tried to trace it onto my retinas,
unable to keep it there long.

What was I expecting to find?
To be taken to the place I could meet
the one I thought I was waiting for?

What I was always waiting for,
what I always wanted…
if only you could get it and keep waiting for it;
to keep it and keep wanting it.

Let this couplet pass
beneath feet like glass.