"if I fell / it would / only be / into that same / childhood street, / where I dreaded / to tread on the lines -- / not knowing / the lines / would someday / tread / on me."
Erica Jong,
"Poem for Molly's Fortieth Birthday"
1.
I love to focus on the
ticking of the clock. You would
call it "Zen and the art of listening to a
Clock Ticking." That is, of course,
if you knew what I was
talking about.
When I listen, there is no time.
Even time is blurring into you,
into chaos, into God, and into you
again.
All I am supposed to think about
is something other than you,
your face enarmed, wrapping around me,
blurring even me, my thoughts, into you.
(This is the trick to achieving Zen, you
would say.)
Apparently this is not working.
2.
I am unsure of you, unsure of
whether or not I am going or
coming, or if I am paralyzed in
your margin -
to unsure, to hesitant to
undergo any sort of change.
(So what is this? The Zen of
standing still? The Zen of
letting the things you wish to own
own you?)
You have transfixed
your boot, the hand of a clock,
to my face and sung into my head
the song I was too afraid
to sing for myself.
3.
I imagine walking down the
sidewalk, imagining
each crack is a different part of
you.
I fix my boot firmly on each crack,
the same cracks I was
so afraid of
time and time before.
At the first:
your mouth. I can be venomous.
At the second:
I am dancing around your feet. You
are jealous, you never had it in you.
At the third:
I am screaming into you
the words you were too afraid
to speak yourself.
And so it is true:
You expand and contract -
You are unstable, but at least
you have a flux.
Meanwhile, I am counting the
seconds of my life, trying to
step forward, onto the
fourth crack.
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