Think, after so many times, how/nothing is pure or completely/lost.

Landscape

Josh Booton

I love you, she said, meaning

why do you always have to be

like that. And he, turned

to the window--the loose tunings

of telephone wire, the half-drawn shades

across, a woman or man naked

from behind--thought,

after so many times, how

words mean more or less than

they mean to, are made up

of other words, agreements

for flux or inflection

or whole lives. So that

hotpot means that morning in Prague

when she burned her arm

and he mimed fire,

with his hands, to the young pharmacist

who gave him Astroglide

and her a scar, strangely the shape

of Czechoslovakia, to remember by.

Or why those nights,

he home drunk but happy,

she would listen to him

in the dark, taking off his clothes

and the whole evening--

the tipsy tables and forced jokes,

the brief signatures of smoke;

how the waitress called him

honey across the bartop's honey shellac,

the mile home--and think: watermelon.

Think, after so many times, how

nothing is pure or completely

lost. Each word to usher

the world in, each world

to make the words less sure.

Until there is nowhere to stand

except at the window

looking out on cars for miles

and think: desire.

Nowhere to turn but to her

through the black-earth scent of coffee,

the country blues from another room.

I love you, too, he said.

i miss poetry.

b