Not writing

     Janvier

     Fevrier

     There is the candle lit

And burning, there are

The three sunflowers sagging

Against the earthenware cup

     Where have we come

To where arrived

     At night and in the afternoon

The wind pushes insistently against

The windows of this small apartment

In which I have never loved you

With the violence of one thing

Longing to be another

     It is the sound of a vinyl casing

Just before it is forced apart

The glass thudding in the padded

Frame so sudden that I can only

Startle to meet its unexpected

Shudder

     There is the candle stand found

Discarded in a drawer in that other

Apartment we once shared

The blue ceramic vase left me

By my lover whose name you have

So often spoken without knowing

     And now she and I hold one

Another as if we had been cast out

From our families and must live

In that wilderness everyone has

Forsaken in their rush to proclaim

A new Jerusalem

            That burnished place that once

Held such vast promise and is now

Our home, despite our longing

For otherness in all things and in

Ourselves always