Our Bed Is Also Green
Please speak to me | only of the present |
or if you must | bring up the past |
bring up only that | which you and I |
don't share. I know | this is a selfish |
thing to ask. Yes, as I | have often |
remarked, shore lunch | at hanging rock |
was lovely. Your | hair and mine |
stayed put. Later on | we didn't, as we |
do now, pull it from | each other's clothes |
as if for final proof | that we've been |
sleeping with | each other. In the glorious |
picnics of the past | we simply knew |
such things. The rock | upon which |
we sat, ran beneath | the lake, and was |
the same rock we | were both looking |
over to the other | side at. I almost |
felt, believe me, | as if we were |
two people. Person, | I nearly could |
have said, hold on. | Instead, I used |
the name we had | agreed upon. Not |
your fault. A name | is useful, it helps |
with the blankness | I am sometimes |
feeling in regards | to you. I apologize |
for saying this | out loud. You are not |
the blankness | I am speaking |
of. Plug your thought | or daydream |
into me, and they | or I will often |
fail to light. You are | beginning to see |
what I mean about | the past, how I, |
despite my facility | with pliers, and eye |
for detail, may not | be suitable. What was |
your name? I am | not kidding. What comes |
will run us through | from the front, we |
pull our way | down its length |
if only to see, at last | what has ahold |
of the spear-grip. | Therefore, the future, |
as a topic, is sadly | also out. Instead, let's |
cast the deep side | of the weedbed |
together. The lake | is black, like slate |
we scrape across | with paddles toward |
the weedtops, | sticking up, like alien |
flags, above | the invisible |
settlements, the castle | you've dropped |
your hooks | inside of. I love |
how destructive | you are with the fishes, |
so go ahead | and bring your war |
against them, Ramona, | against the duck, |
against time, | against any things |
that swim. Our fiber- | glass canoe is of |
burnt orange; | our shapely hooks |
of shining gold; | our giant rock, also |
somewhere in the lake | beneath us, is |
the bottom, toward | which the minnow, |
lip-hooked, dives | after the lead, |
its weight a thing | the minnow seems |
to follow, as if | we sent it dropping |
both for what we had | to give away and still |
we didn't want | the lake to have. |
Credit
Copyright © 2010 by Joshua Bell. Used with permission of the author.
Date Published
12/08/2010