Outdated Reflex

That was the way
that I had to know them,
taking that root
vulnerable in my body,
the way a child
so small puts everything:
pebbles, keys, plastic cars,
in his mouth.

I slipped them in,
one after another like a gardener
who plants wild tulip bulbs
to see each hybrid flower,
its glossy vibrant petals.

I wanted to learn about love
and how would I transform
my skin that I rubbed
against his skin,
his eyes like the earth
trembles in its depths,
a fortune in raw diamonds.

Though I was often selfish
and averse to such waking chaos,
I adhered to the only science I knew.
The crude oil…
because it was there, in the cold night,
as the first man to discover fire,
to growl, insistently hitting the rock
against the rock, bent on that spark.

I'm glad to have myself
redone with all that.
more than half a century,
the same faces greet each other
every gray morning
like hungry cats.
You think you are you.

But soon death will seize them
by their wide waists
to push them one by one out of the house,
turn off the gas and water switch,
will turn down the lights,
boards over the windows,
those locked French doors,
and then, just when you thought
that this was a home
death turned the slender key
of gold in the lock.


PAR