THE TRANSLUCENCE OF THOUGHT

His brain was lazy at times, waking into

the mid-afternoon…  Was it the world

then, that had gone awry?  His life,

his mindset shifting in time, the subtle

changes that illumine those mid-points

of understanding...  & always the will

to act magnanimous in all things.  Yet it was

she who understood, she who refrained

ever from immediate-response, & still       

a part of her enmeshed in his psyche…

The everyday goings-on, & even those

intimate whispers.  & he, so often overlooked...     

Written-off, or misunderstood, asked          

if she had been his siren all the while,

the subtleties of her metamorphosis, 

in each swell of presence…  Yet some-

thing there, always recognizable as her, an imprint

in the flux of waking-life.  & she, even

appearing to him in dreams, or the days 

that awaken...  & still that open-eye

dazzled by the phosphorescence of far cities...   

Was it just that he was not-yet born?  

His voice unrecognized in the world

of set-possibilities, & she, always to lift          

the box with him in silent-reassurance. 

The autumn drifts by like a cloud, & he comes

at last to embrace his alienation, a state

not self-imposed, but a place we often                    

find ourselves, either alone, or with a
sole-observer…  Was it a bird, or a glint 

in distant elms?  His life, a séance,          

layers with the seasons, & he finds him-

self alive to the migrations of desire…