Something
comes into the world unwelcome
calling disorder, disorder—

If you hate me so much
don’t bother to give me
a name: do you need
one more slur
in your language, another
way to blame
one tribe for everything—

as we both know,
if you worship
one god, you only need
One enemy—

I’m not the enemy.
Only a ruse to ignore
what you see happening
right here in this bed,
a little paradigm
of failure. One of your precious flowers
dies here almost every day
and you can’t rest until
you attack the cause, meaning
whatever is left, whatever
happens to be sturdier
than your personal passion—

It was not meant
to last forever in the real world.
But why admit that, when you can go on
doing what you always do,
mourning and laying blame,
always the two together.

I don’t need your praise
to survive. I was here first,
before you were here, before
you ever planted a garden.
And I’ll be here when only the sun and moon
are left, and the sea, and the wide field.

I will constitute the field.

I had left my passport at an inn we stayed at for a night or so
whose name I couldn’t remember. This is how it began.
The next hotel would not receive me,
a beautiful hotel, in an orange grove, with a view of the sea.
How casually you accepted
the room that would have been ours,
and, later, how merrily you stood on the balcony,
pelting me with foil-wrapped chocolates. The next day
you resumed the journey we would have taken together.

The concierge procured an old blanket for me.
By day, I sat outside the kitchen. By night, I spread my blanket
among the orange trees. Every day the same, except for the weather.

After a time, the staff took pity on me.
The busboy would bring me food from the evening meal,
the odd potato or bit of lamb. Sometimes a postcard arrived.
On the front, glossy landmarks and works or art.
Once, a mountain covered in snow. After a month or so,
there was a postscript: X sends regards.

I say a month, but really I had no idea of time.
The busboy disappeared. There was a new busboy, then one more, I believe.
From time to time, one would join me on my blanket.

I loved those days! each one exactly like its predecessor.
There were the stone steps we climbed together
and the little town where we breakfasted. Very far away,
I could see the cove where we used to swim, but not hear anymore
the children calling out to one another, nor hear
you anymore, asking me if I would like a cold drink,
which I always would.

When the postcards stopped, I read the old ones again.
I saw myself standing under the balcony in that rain
of foil-covered kisses, unable to believe you would abandon me,
begging you, of course, though not in words –

The concierge, I realized, had been standing beside me.
Do not be sad, he said. You have begun your own journey,
not into the world, like your friend’s, but into yourself and your memories.
As they fall away, perhaps you will attain
that enviable emptiness into which
all things flow, like the empty cup in the Daodejing –

Everything is change, he said, and everything is connected.
Also everything returns, but what returns is not
what went away –

We watched you walk away. Down the stone steps
and into the little town. I felt
something true had been spoken
and though I would have preferred to have spoken it myself
I was glad at least to have heard it.