Incommunicado
You’re closer than a friend
request away. I’m afraid
that we’re at an impasse.
We’re as two stones facing
off. See, a spark between
them! The flames muffled.
They must be saying yield!
Give way or give me water!
I roll over you. I didn’t stop
rolling away. I want to start
again, to learn the language
of repair. My last answer
was received in confusion
like a torch beamed away
from the faulty spot of a cold
generator you fix in the night
of the collapse of the nation
-al grid. You ask for a wrench
& I point at myself. We are
at a gridlock, our fingers
interlocked. It looks like love.
But we’re only washing off
the grease from the spark plug.
Let me show my hands. I want
to learn the language of smoke.
To scrub the smokescreen,
for the meaning of what
happened to a man & his son
at the other end of a flood
is not so clear to me. I walk
blindfolded to meet you
in a dream of blunt edges.
I walk backwards. Let
the wrong say I’m tired.
Let the wronged say I am
too. What happened to a builder
& his pupil at the madhouse
has happened to us. You ask
for an apology. I’ll speak no more
of the fissures on the wall, the ceiling
missing a few asbestos slates,
the dining room eating away
its wall paint, the words
getting in the way of touch