Cracks in the Invisible: Poems

V. Absence Makes the Heart

V. Absence Makes the Heart As discourse about God cannot teach us about God, so discourse about love cannot teach us about love. —H. L. Hix 67 XOXOXO Let the more loving one be me. —Auden She brings her ten-page letters to a close With stylish x’s and expressive o’s In little lines, like stitches, to impart Her sense of their infrangible connection; On his he draws a tin-can phone and heart, His tangible conceit for their affection. They send each other seasonal bouquets, Boxes of truffles, lemongrass sachets. They track months’ passage with a felt-tip marker And joke that Time is warring with the sexes. If day by day their calendars grow darker And boxed-in weeks become a row of x’s, They seem to have decided that these scraps Of crisscrossed paper are the treasure maps For Once-Upon-A-Time and Long-Ago; Still cross-eyed drunk with love, they must confuse Their hugs-and-kisses game of tic-tac-toe With something that the two of them can’t lose. 68 Patience She thanks him for his patience, and he pauses Over the probably subconscious causes That she, so distant, chose this word to deal A compliment to him. She says she’ll feel Much better once she’s home, but all he’s heard Is the explosion of that loaded word: It smolders like a single diamond set In an engagement ring. He can’t forget— Although by now perhaps he shouldn’t care— That patience is a name for solitaire. 69 Streetlight and Stars I stood there on the balcony with nothing On but a pair of boxers. Streetlights hung An awkward, orange haze Over the dingy pavement while the air Reverberated with the city’s murmurs— Terse car-horn honks of Morse code gibberish, Rap lyrics, thudding bass lines, The pops and crystalline burbles of breaking glass. I’d almost just made love. We’d opted not to. My girlfriend joined me on the balcony, Dressed in her bra and panties; We stood there side by side, not saying much Until she offered, “The other day I read This crazy article that claimed the stars Spelled out the gospel message— Leo and Virgo stood for Christ and Mary.” I think she wanted to connect with me Because we’d stopped. “That’s kind of weird,” I said. “I thought so, too,” she said, Recoiling from the sound of squealing tires A few blocks down. “You just can’t trust the Web.” We watched the moon, as clear-edged as the moon In movies where they use A blue screen to create a starry background. I thought about how planets, “wanderers” In Greek, moved backward through the sky 70 And caused the complications That plagued the Ptolemaic universe— Elaborate epicycles, deferents, And equant points that made a king remark, “Had God consulted me, I would have recommended something simpler.” I kind of missed that old cosmology With Earth dead center, all those perfect circles, The Primum Mobile, And that celestial music Dante heard When he first started hurtling toward the stars, Drawn by a love that seven hundred years Ago could leave him weightless, Immune to gravity. All things considered, Maybe I should have tried a little harder To talk to her: maybe I should have told her I suddenly respected The sheer lucidity of our desire Or that I longed for the empyrean. Before I could, she shivered, went inside, And started getting dressed. “You should come in. I’ll try to find that link,” She said, her voice a little flat. I waited A few more minutes, though, despite the cold, Enamored of my thoughts, And through the sliding door I watched as her Computer screen blinked to a vibrant blue And white block letters spelled out SyStem Failure. I didn’t go back in Until a streetlight flickered and went out. 71 Nocturne in the Key of Water As the last chord softens the symphony Into a manageable hum, Muting the memory of the tympani With slurred adieus from horns and clarinets Until the orchestra goes dumb And everyone regrets The silence porous with an awkward cough And gentle banter, so our few Last words resolved before your moving off And ceding me to silence. I have grown Accustomed to rooms...