Previous Desire

To the lilacs there by the window I can only say, Violins would have done as well. A previous desire was unmasked by cheap wine, leaving me breathless amid redundant questions. But time does not come back, like a boomerang or otherwise.

Anarchy then? The dancers ate fresh berries, watched shadows creep slowly over the floor towards them. Everywhere I go, vengeance went first.

On the horizon is the other hand, blood in its veins. I would weep if only the caravan were moving faster through that rainy memorable morning. She wrote, I'm looking for a lover who only leaves the bed to make me coffee.

It's a class thing, a barred door thing. Distant monsters grovel as they approach, faded Polaroids of our parents stuffed in their back pockets. I mistook a toy scythe for a moment alone at the opera, was never the same thereafter.

Walking in London, just after it began to snow, you said, Hansel is so full of himself, I wish Gretel had just let the witch have her way. Soldiers passed on our left, bored boys but with guns. Muttering sonnets, desperate for attention, getting what you want.

I would like to forgive you but I'm so damn paranoid! Reading a biography of Hitler, an old one, I kept seeing a cold apartment, nearly empty, in which long planes of sunlight could be said to hasten, not linger, through a small window facing west. In winter one doesn't think that much of lilacs.

Oh, but I do think of you, fondly, as one recalls certain elements of childhood while falling asleep. Sentence after sentence, longing for the line.