Conjugation of a Mirror

While you are walking through Chicago
saying goodbye to an old lover
I am indoors tracing a small chain
of indefatigable ants on my arm.

I stand in the porch
and watch the rain tumble down
from the cupped leaves of palm trees outside.

Scraps of paper are washed away.
I can see you tripping along your favorite streets,
wondering what will happen to us in the future.

Early morning light startles my eyes.
A glass of water, and the quiet
arrival of a day without you.
I begin to notice the slowness in things.
The trees own time in the wind,
voices washing in and out of each other.

There is not enough space on my desk
for what I am trying to do.

The day remains dumb.

Night scratches at the doors and paneling.
Another downpour.

Why am I cold,
I throw more poems out everyday, and bread
for the birds. Nothing much happens
this time of night.
A siren, and next door's singing.
Yes, I have been reading, and music, too.
Upstairs, the businessman comes home drunk again.

I imagine you there, sitting in some jazz club;
replaying the old grooves, swing lover,
bashing out more poems everyday,
Eros tied to your typewriter,
changing your clothes compulsively.

While I am here, my wings full of water,
asking the same questions about swans,
and lights, and dark roads, dreams
scampering down alleyways.

You'll come back with tangled birds in your hair,
dirty fingered rosaries,
with spilled drinks, and unlit candles.

I'll be here with forgetting's dull lamp in the corner,
trying to pierce autumn's red alphabet
with my own tangled dreams,

rusted a little by Wednesday