Union Square by Lori Shine Whether to approach from the North or South into what failed state on my way to meet you, crossing the square by whichever means we reach it There is sound which passes through me, I am a small column in the street translucent, I saw spaces between people, mirrored pillars released from myself, none is mine, no key to the tuneless air The trees resolve into wildness are they content with their moment absolved of sky never in the least wretched To be struck by your choice I have a key to one door in this city and my job is to carry it around. My long appointment comes, what I’d been longing to say I lack conviction, disappear in the grass am terraced in levels of disbelief but not faithless I came to the city where you were. In the palm of the park in the palm of your city such stillness before rain— my movements don’t make a ripple and why did I believe this painting a portal for speaking with you— No door but a painting a wall a window and where I had written myself into it— the leaves in your hand, a skylight talking to a painting I know no better than you what happened If we will be pulled apart after a quiet drink in the lobby by joy borrowing a ladder even joy has to borrow to know where you are The wet marble stairs the stairs orthodox bells ringing the square in sound colored inside with fantastic blues communicative and mute, moving strange or internal like standing live in presence of an architectural understanding or love like that of a painting. Too grasping when I wanted to throw open a curtain, erotic when I meant to lay on top of the sheet cool after a shower. The leaves could speak it waving close as they do then tearing away with wind as their excuse. And I walked out to be plastered over with leaves like a very weak superhero who’s forgotten her trick Will you see it on the wall of my torso in sleep, flickering across the blades of one shoulder or another You in the bright street a minute stopped, you were looking at a bracelet abandoned on a step, my view of you deliciously occluded in smoke from the incense man’s table does it seem like he’s just one incense man though I am sure there are many but you are singular and missed by me and here at last faith too is a kind of enclosure or is it a gate Manic in their blue bubble the branches but for a moment I shied off to watch you in the world, oblivious to the way it opens just for you, buildings on the sunny side listing to eavesdrop on your slightly bowlegged walk I watched your head rise, and the corners of your mouth myself becoming physically condensed so much so I looked down to see what was happening in there and you smelled like honey a little and yesterday’s shirt Lori Shine (from Boston Review) ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html