I Talk to You Alone

I talk to you alone,
because there is no one.

In the old days spirals
were never made
for us to probe
their curves,
but for us to glide
round the bends
and, with no sense
of sharp edges,
to go
down,
to climb
up.

I talk to you alone,
when there is no one.

In place of the third panel
in the triptych of our talking
were set, as make-believe,
our shared present tenses.
But we know each other
and we don’t believe
there is a third place,
or a third tense,
punished by some
smudged and wrinkled
and unknown,
and alien and forced
and puffy,
and goggle-eyed, peeping
from behind its own inventions,
painted third person
of one of the numbers.

I talk to you alone,
the moment I sense there is no one.

And most of the time I touch
some objects, carelessly.
Just to play with something
while I talk to you,
while I rearrange shelves
and while I splash my hand
with water boiling over from the coffee pot.
This meeting is only a chance flicker.
A fleeting gaze into the dark.

2009