Distance
I’ve written this
And I cannot write this.
Ink tattoos the paper skins,
Closing distance that we won’t bridge.
I have lived in your house.
I have slept in your arms.
Still the secret yawns around us.
I cannot write this
But I write it.
The way you touch your coffee cup.
The scent of the skin
On your throat.
Not a millimeter stretches between us.
The silence crushes my breath out.
I cannot help but write this;
You asked for it.
We press our bodies so tight
A sheet of paper couldn’t slip between us,
We press harder, the motions violent
Pulling and scratching, needing the closeness.
The secret is unharmed. We have bruises.
I have danced with the secret at the center of the circle.
I have moved in its small grasp, and swayed, entranced.
We circle the fire, our movements swollen and fierce,
And in the center of our circle, smoldering in the flames
Is a secret I have yet to embrace.
I cannot write this
And yet I write it.
It is hiding beneath your tea cup.
It waits inside the cabinets,
Folded among the linens.
I can hear it in your heartbeat.
I can taste it in your kiss.
I’ve written this
And yet I write this.
The slip of the secret’s kiss,
The fire’s hiss.
Your fingers on my spine.
A delicate lie.
I believe you.
I must not write this
And yet I write it.
In this endless stretch of days and nights
This desperately short life
I cannot know you
And still I know
That you’ll forgive me.
September 4th, 2009 at 10:28 am
I’ll be blunt with you C., since we have enough history that I know you’ll understand it comes from a place of respect and friendship: this is simply both too melodramatic and too academic. There’s a sort of charm to it, in that it is both of those things… but, in the end, I’m not sure the balance is satisfying.
It is VERY hard to write, explicitly, about a secret. Either you don’t give enough clues to what it is (keeping the secret from the reader), and it stays a secret (true to its identity), but leaves the reader unsatisfied, not knowing… or… you give enough clues, helping the reader learn the secret, in which case it’s not true to its identity as a secret and the reader is unsatisfied.
Mystery novels have the same problem, but there is a wealth of social and cultural flotsam that help both writers and readers understand the genre without becoming frustrated; there is also an implicit sauce for readers, in that we trust that the writer will, in the end, “reveal all.” So we can put up with vaguery and misdirection. Not so much in a short poem.
The parallel between that idea — a secret that is not revealed — and the idea of “writing this” and “not writing this” is interesting, but almost in an academic way, which is at odds with the overall feverish drama. Because there is no real, meaty hint or even metaphoric load about what “the secret” might be, it’s hard to know or feel if it’s truly a big deal, or just a slip of paper.
I would almost rather have seen this as two separate poems. One that tracks “the paper” as it moves, the other all sweat, coffee, hiss and kiss. In neither poem, should the word, “smolder” appear, though.
There are interesting ideas here that deserve additional treatment. I am glad to see something from you; I’ve missed your work over the past few years. You often manage to combine a really raw energy and some truly delicate thinking/steps through the process. This could use another pass, a more specific goal, I think.
And I won’t ask “what’s the secret?” It’s not that I know, it’s that I don’t need to, you know?