In the Village

Newyorksunday and after
spending the afternoon with Dali
I can think of nothing
but the slow sweet oildrip of time.

Later, I remember
what you said about that exit sign,
and I think I understand it,
as outside,
language sheds the artless yoke of meaning
and dissolves into shakerleg city music:
The stuttering trills of the Dominican parade
hum like a pack of mayflies,
joyful in their ephemerality.
On the subway, an old man
is rasping and his words
are flattened beneath
the rushing wheels of the traincar,
just as my clumsy whisperings
must have slid right off your ear
and thudded on the floor, unnoticed.

I feel like the man in that film, Un Chien Andalou:
I am struggling so hard
to shed all of this absurd baggage;
dragging a baby grand,
some strange dead animal,
and these two hilariously nonplussed clergymen,
all while this crazy ant colony
is inexplicably trying to escape from my palm,
and all I wanna do is just
try to cross the room
to where the girl is standing.

I tried to explain some guy thing
to you at the baseball game,
and you're right:
I suck at explaining everything.
So here's another thing
only I will ever understand,
because it comes from my
rectangular perspective:
I have gladly given up sleep
to follow the roller coaster curve
of your moonwhite skin as it falls
down from your shoulders and
rises up to your hips as the weight
of your legs are draped over mine,
a line that can never be painted or filmed
but only watched and touched
at a certain moment,
in a certain light.