4.10.2021

overlooking, yes, but also overlapping

What could be more picturesque 
than us eating lobster on the water, 
the sun vanishing over the horizon, 
willing, once again, to allow us almost 
any satisfaction. William James said 
marriage was overlooking, overlooking, 
yes, but also overlapping: opinions, 
histories, the truth of someone not you 
sitting across the table seeing the you 
you can’t bear to, the face behind 
the long fable in the mirror. Freud said 
we’re cured when we see ourselves 
the way a stranger does in moments. 
Am I the I she tried to save, still lopsided 
with trying to be a little less or more, 
escaping who I was a moment ago? 
Here, now, us, sipping wine in this 
candlelit pause, in the charm of the ever 
casting sky, every gesture familiar, 
painfully endearing, the I of me, the she 
of her, the us only we know, alone together 
all these years. Call it what you like, 
happiness or failure, the discreet curl 
of her bottom lip, the hesitant green 
of her eyes, still lovely with surprise. 

listen to it here
 

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