Waiting is the moon, waiting the groom
in the little boy. The red minute waits
in the white afternoon, the dream in the daylit
consciousness. Is god what’s waiting
to hear back, we the message sent out
into the void? You wait for something to appear
but in most cases the opposite is true,
wait long enough it’s all gone, the year’s
preparatory nubs on the weeping pussy willow,
pregnant woman in the airport taxi queue
reading a book of names. Alphabet
to be rearranged into the spelling of your name
just as you rearranged me so I thought
let’s have lunch in a tree, winter already
spring, bells to drink champagne from.
I couldn’t wait to see you again
so tried to warp space-time
with sexual energy alone, what a joke,
especially over the phone, sorry.
Slower the shorter days go, the pool
closed a month ago, goldfinches gone
from the coneflowers, coneflowers
brown bent low, hardly any need to mow,
it’s cold, it snows, just a few crab apples
left on the bare tree to ferment so spring
returning waxwings can get drunk enough
to almost touch as I am almost touching you
not wanting to wait.
from Fall HigherFind it in the library
Copyright © 2011 Dean Young
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.
on behalf of Copper Canyon Press.