The Impossibility of Love Affairs in Book Stores


in the year of self-help I draw circles with my blood

a slow scrawl as though a drawl or accent
from an ancient country has invaded
the spirit of my left hand

and you materialize as a dance movement
insecure as the identity of clouds

in the year of the pronoun we have become
a trade store on a New Orleans side street
somewhere where there once was Jackson Square

and we genuflect to the sweeping actions of too many words

pray for poems and coffee grounds and for those trash men
who will take away the litter life and love leaves
against the shoals of our shifting memories

where were and is are nothing more
than the latest argument of falling leaves that surf
November winds and dream of cleansing snow