Sometimes my mind goes back to certain things.
Like everyone’s.
Like to the woman who asked me
What keeps you awake at night?
She wanted a writerly, magical answer.
A black forest, a shining maid walking through it.
The woman—she was a guest, a visiting artist.
I was a guest to her visitingness: polite guest
at an affable table.
My neck, I said, meaning pain
of the basest physical kind. Meaning also
sadness, and worry—
though I didn’t say so.
I’d done enough, I’d said the neck thing
as if I were snapping a chicken for supper.
The woman smiled through it, a pro.
Oh, I’m sorry, she said, pushing the shining maid
into a closet and shutting the door in a hushed
and magical way.
I wanted to bind her with rope.
I wanted to watch her struggle, if just for a minute.
The mind goes back, the heart goes with it, the forest
whirls all around. Instead
I was kind to her husband, whose life
had had something to do with flight.
He was quiet, the husband. Like someone
whose part in the world was done.
He seemed to expect
no one.
He was the husband.
He was like light on the leaves of night.