Four Poems on Learning to Exist

1: Loss

I am the drop of wine that misses your lips
on its way to the hardwood floor.

I am a drop of wine
I am in the process of missing your lips
until I hit the hardwood floor
and then the act of missing is done.

2: Solitude

I am a breath held in the lungs until they start to sear
and the room swims. I am the swimming room.

No one’s around and no one’s talking.

Some books are on the floor and fan is on the ceiling.

The fan’s not moving.

The room is quiet.

If the room is quiet it may as well

be for swimming. So I swim.

3: Sociability


I am one of so many things that can only maintain
the impression of being alive through constant motion.

A shark, an automobile, a comet.

I pace the sidewalk, the party, the after party,
across the rolling meadow down the road to your apartment
where sometimes I knock and ask to be asked inside
but mostly just brace myself in the doorframe

until I run out of breath and need to leave

I am approaching rapidly.
I am immediately receding.
I am not trying to hurt anyone.
For once this includes myself.

4. Intimacy

I am the set of teeth that clasps a quivering lower lip
I am the still, quiet room where hearts can be heard beating

Each of these things will maintain for a given duration
When they stop, I will parse through the soundwaves.
I will be unable to discern the attack from the decay.