Midnight at St. Thomas’ Orphanage

(As published in Allegheny Review and Blue Earth Review, Spring 2007)

Children fall asleep,
But you shift, eyes
Open and thoughts form thumping:

A woman’s hand nudges the back
Of your head. You walk gracelessly,
Bumping her leavened-bread bosom.

You stroll into a field of ferns
And hay-shapes. The tall grass leans confidently
Like town flags. You hear the word cover.

The flies float full of gravy.
We lick and leisure, they say
You never need to swat them off.

A man picks you up higher
Than a church cross.
You smell the woody intensity of
His tacit nearness,
The sturdiness of his oxcart arms.

You ache for what you do not
Know, miss what you
Have not had.

Dinner is done and
This is this.

silence

i reach for the pen which slips out and it is only next to my knuckle but i can reach it and i reach out and have it in my hand and then my arm is so lonely i am so lonely my arm has nothing to write. but what is there to say for if there is nothing to say then why say nothing for there is nothing to say so i should say nothing which is not saying at all but rather just not the action of saying which is silence, yes there is silence when i am alone like this and i can write down things to fill that silence but there will still be silence even though i fill it in with my thoughts over and over but you are the one who needs to fill my head with thoughts so i can fill the silence yes you but you are not can not be the one to fill my head with thoughts so that i can fill the silence which is never filled until my head is always being filled by you

what was it was doing again i don't remember what it was i was doing was i going to do something with my hand holding this pen was it drawing or maybe writing yes it was speaking to fill this silence

this silence

this silence

this silence


foolishness! because my head is empty so i cannot ever fill this silence despite my longing my desire my yearning to fill it because this silence what is it i can hear the sounds and i can see the sights but my soul wanders it wonders where is anything this is not an oasis my soul needs to drink from something it leaves me thirsty and i wish i had that bottle of water but it is late too late yes too late to get it but i will go and get it anyway because i am thirsty but it is too late but i will get it



water drink never satisfies though my tongue and throat were parched and i knew they wanted water when i give it to them they are not happy and want more but it is never enough no never enough for that thirst is like a silence to them is like the silence to me to my soul but if you were here i would fill that silence with thoughts instead of speaking this way but if my tongue and my throat are never satisfied with that water that they crave and i crave i take a sip and it is cool but not enough then how will my soul be satisfied with you can you even satisfy my soul with what you can give is it enough for my soul for my thirst for my silence for my mind for my thoughts for my soul for my soul for my soul for my soul

for the silence

where was i i must have been here in this darkness it is night so late should i sleep it does not matter i can enjoy this time to fill the silence because i hate this silence i hate it I HATE IT but i am still thirsty still for you who can never satisfy my thirst just like that water can not satisfy my thirst but it does make me need to urinate the collection of that water in my abdomen there is a distraction yes i do need distractions they distract from my distractions from the silence

what is enough for my soul what is enough for this silence is it not you am i looking for the wrong things am i only distracting myself is this water only but not wine and do i even know what wine is this analogy is not enough is not enough for the silence it is not just silence i am lonely i need you i need you are you enough i need you



yes, but maybe i need you because you need me and my head is not empty i have thoughts they are for you but also they are for us and i can give you thoughts and you can give me thoughts but then we need thoughts from a place that has more thoughts and a lot of thoughts and a flood of thoughts more thoughts than i can think than i can know because that is where my thoughts lie and that is where your thoughts lie and that is where we will lie when there is no more silence.

Faces

At O’Hare International airport, Leo stands alone next to walls and walls of glass, his hands in front of him, his eyes at his feet. He is not thinking about Kim, his girlfriend who he has not seen in a year, nor the questions that he would like to ask her while they are in his beige Ford (How was it? Were the people there different? Is business competitive in France?), or even her arrival time.

Leo is thinking about yesterday night, a night spent alone in front of a computer. It was not unlike most other nights that year: he came back to his tin can apartment from his office, made dinner (he was far too sophisticated for TV dinners or anything out of a paper container), and walked straight to the computer, watching pornography until he fell asleep. Here, his memory fades, as Leo never liked to remember the particulars of those previous nights behind closed doors and vertical blinds – those fuzzy scenes of skin pigment and movement. Originally, he could not even look at their faces. They were too animated or too expressive, his hand always covering a portion of his 15 inch screen from that horrible beacon of cheap delight, contrived intimacy or giddy small-talk. It was all too much. Too human. It’s fake, anyways, he’d say. It was safer this way.

Yet, every once in a while, he’d come across a face or an expression that would make him think of Kim. Immediately, he would stop watching, getting up from the computer and wandering aimlessly into the kitchen, telling himself he was thirsty and that he needed water or juice, his face flushed with some unknown heat. Yet, an hour later, he’d always come back to that face, his eyes peering at the screen from the darkness around him, again thinking of Kim. Sheepishly, he would look at those faces, contorted with unknowable amounts of pleasure and pain, one by one coming back to her. He hated to make that comparison. But surely, could he deny that the certain expression with slanted lips would always evoke the time when she wanted to go to the beach merely because he couldn’t swim? Or did not that jerky movement of the hips remind him of her shivery walk, and the fact that it was this unabashedly awkward grace that drew him to her to begin with? He remembers thinking that she wasn’t like the other business school students. She was sophisticated, yet simple. She’d flip straight to the sports section in The Times on Saturday mornings. She never gushed, but was straightforward to the point of risking being nondescript, even in her writing: it’s great, I love it here. Only enough information to let him know that she was alive and distantly happy.

Soon, Leo’s thoughts will think of which gate she will arrive at and inevitably, back to himself – his hands, his feet, his figure in the glass. Had those nights in front of the computer changed him? Would he look different to Kim? Leo’s hands will immediately rise to his face, feeling around for that trickle of hair that originated from under his nose down to the bulge of his chin. He had intentionally grown it out to anticipate Kim’s arrival. He will think of Kim and her new clothes, her new taste for Alsace or Cabernet Sauvignon and he will think he needs a similar change. After all, he had matured too. He had started to play the guitar she shipped over to him from Florence for his birthday. He had redecorated his apartment with colorful arrays of kitchenware and rugs. He had shopped at IKEA.

Soon, Leo will be thinking of engagement rings. Soon, they will be moving into a quaint house of floral colors in the middle of Naperville, Chicago because she insists on living a “slower pace of life.” Soon, they will be together in the middle of the night, bundled in the quiet heat of bedroom tradition, her arm and face on his chest, rising up and down to his slow breathing. Yet, Leo does not sleep. He will look at her – her mouth bent slightly upwards and open like a cat’s – counting the seconds between her breaths (Is she really sleeping?). He will look for a sign or signal. He will look for permission to sleep. He will look for that gesture of good faith that said it’s great, I love it here.