Day and night

I survived the day.
Now, the night.

These misrecognitions keep on happening

Misrecognition #1
The body as love.
I saw the body by itself
and thought it was love,
but years later, I found
Pain is not just visceral,
and the body only
is lonely. Pain came back.


Misrecognition #2
This time the body was dismissed.
Instead I waited for words
and the bodies of texts.
Love was a book--
many books, and my body was one--
opened and flipped through--
perused. Pain grew large.


Misrecognition #3
I dismissed both the body and the book.
I touched without reading,
but my body knew. it recognized
absence, and it rebelled. Pain was somatic--dull and constant.
all I could do was keep my mouth open until
Pain can hear itself deep within
pauses between breaths.

Misrecognition #4
The body is sculpted (in fact, it sculpts itself.)


Misrecognition #5
To know, you cannot feel. (in fact, to feel is ancient knowledge that came before thought; it is old as love is old and does not doubt itself.)


This is the truth:
Pain is itself desirable.

This night

Darkness hides its face
in cigarette smoke and wind.

At the station
the dog and I sit, waiting;
the dog yawns
and I open my mouth--
we swallow the night.