(the things constant) a long goodbye 8

It must be primordial knowledge of this 
Temporal state of being in body, this
Limited form, blood and flesh mere
Vessel of what we truly are--and what are we
(If what is such a definitive, limiting thing)?

Do we hunger, search for constant
Knowing we are fleeting mist?

I tell you I find comfort in the familiar.
Not one who easily warms to change, no matter
All these awareness of primordial states
And all the assurances of all being well

If not now, not yet, 
Later will.

The universe cannot be not good.
For all these wonders to exist. Tangible and
Not. Such as this bridge we cross, vague,
To meet you and I nearly formless in space
Years now, and I hope, years more.

(the slow remaining days) a long goodbye 7

And how do women understand goodbye?
I do not know how to comfort
Someone who says she is alright. 
Do we not take one for one's word?
I tell her repeatedly I am leaving,
settle as many things as her buoys

She will have to learn to navigate
Absences, this beautiful woman 
Who reminds me of my own weaknesses.

Wiping the plate last night, she 
Suddenly cried. And we both know. 

It is very quiet now where I am. 
Morning sun gold after early rain.
The dogs are asleep. I am having tea.
This afternoon I will talk about 
Literature. And Times.

In the last moment of departures,
Like chess, unsentimental, I step.
And how do women understand goodbye?
Looking at the disappearing figure.

(where it is foggiest) a long goodbye 6

Easy to say this place the foggiest so far--but I will not
Succumb to hyperbole. Although not all the time, 
I measure words well--as much as possible
Neither too much or less, it matters. Although the golden rule
More often does not happen. Cannot be humanly applied.
Here we are anyway--playing

The trying-hard little hand of god over lives that matter 
Only as far as the thread of empathy goes, stretched little farther
By pity. Like the stray dog outside the gate

I feed but do not take in. Room in the heart does not translate
Well in actual logistics. (But I am angry writing this
The id wrestled down, one against two.) I count

Weeks in one hand: my one special dog, old now, I cannot bring.
The rest, I think with a lawyer, I can leave more easily...

(thursday night) a long goodbye 5

For whom is the goodbye? I ask myself now
Finally understanding why they all ask

My consistent refusal for despedida
No send-offs, I said, No one is leaving.

Even so I think of returns.
Knowing all these are leaving me

As I leave them. 
I do not want to sleep, wanting only

To keep awake. Lengthen, possibly, time.
This Thursday night longer and longer still.

There is a date waiting for me. A door.
An airplane. 

(no essays) a long goodbye 4

In time, I will give in, finally
Into the overwhelming lake of words
Into the river of words flowing
Into sea, and eventually
Into the ocean of forgetfulness.

The reader (the world) (you) becomes 
Finally my faceless intimate friend
Sitting beside me on the cliff
Overlooking mists of distance,
Pasts, dreams, futures... our feet

Dangling on the edge and the sky
Forever with a silver still sun.
And I will tell in the way my father
Once told of his childhood stories,
My own childhood, misty with disuse

And untelling, kept too long in a room
Within a room, within a room barred
By hardwood door, by steel door, 
By brick wall meant as much to conceal
As to say, "Move on. It is done here."

Beside the wall, sometimes a table.
On the table, flowers from the yard.
By the flowers, tea.
Sometimes, beside the wall, a bed.
I knock on the wall. And sometimes

Tell a memory in that exact way
Telling fails to tell all the details:
Exact hue of the afternoon, exact
Feeling of the felt at the bottom
Of a chess piece I was playing,

Learning consequences and consequences
Long before a single move is made.
How did my own father failed to see?
He taught me the game. "Pensar. 
Pensar." Can a child see futures

When a decision is made? I inherited
Many things from my father, I'm afraid.
Including the older face on the mirror.
The same face my lovers see 
At night, in the morning, when I think

I am alone, placing palms on the wall 
Holding the flood of words into 
Becoming few and fewer still.