The Ones (Part 2)
Our pride shot, we don’t get around to doing what we never did.
She alarms me. Just watching her, I’m afraid for her life,
What she might do—she could do so much,
On the opposite platform in the metro’s dusk, after hot cocoa
So mutinous, mine curdled, hers a thick white pudding.
I see her again. I can’t describe it. Yellow train windows
Zoom and snatch her. Some fanfare, I tell you. Then I'm alone,
Worried because I cannot see where she's going. Home?
We have nice ideas. We talked possibilities, the inauguration,
Ate vegan café fare, discussed her sex life and my avoidance of one.
We know each other, not feeling this to be a secret language.
What's left of our pride is only the potential for performance, jointly
Knowing each other, the damage we do in comedy,
Believing an act with chocolate cake would win
All for us. A vision only, but not the one now that causes
Me to worry, one of the ones we've always had.
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