Are You Hungry? A Poem For Departure
for Karthik, departing
'Who has twisted us like this, so that -
no matter what we do - we have the bearing
of a man going away...so we live,
forever saying farewell.' - Rainer Maria Rilke
out of hearing
the last sense
to go
sing to me now
before ears take
leave and I shall
have no more need
for words, sounds,
even these my sighs
heard as I hear you
dropp the soap in
the bath
I imagine you bending
vague in the steam to
find the bar by scent
as you wash away
your own which has
so compelled me
again and again
(so gladly the
little deaths)
Cleave to this
I say aloud
though you may
not hear my plea
in there
from where I sit
bent doubly-over
multiplied with grief
for leaving all this
assumed presence
chalked now upon
crumbling slate
I am caught up in this
vision without glasses
squinting for what is
real or not though you
are faced to mine as I
obediently move my
shaking hand to your
belly, the scar there,
edges still hot
to the touch
Much there is I will
make of this moment,
drying your back as I
have daily done -
once
began the rite
first night
gathering now
the last
o when
the towel easily un-
folded, drank
woven
little mouths many
deeply
into what
has become
natural in me
with the wiping
In this
I am become
free now of
thinking intent
to this my task
to last, this minute
or two, to linger,
each is
become a touch
this one
and this
I am right now to speak
of this, retrieving the soap
which clings one strand
your hair tangled there,
a cypher I read
with joy grown
long into cleaner
disorder
a leaf upon the
bathroom floor
blown in through
the night window
random now
for discovery
a gift
I bring it to
you calling to
me from the
bedroom
as you pack
fumbled upon
the unmade
bed,
'Are you hungry? '
poem by Warren Falcon
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