HALOES
I'd given the blank excuse; what I'd done
slipped out from under. Little but not
experimental eye shadow, the experience
of getting it right — in the shower, this
time of day, with my hand. The glow
east of unregulated trees, night half-eaten.
I recognize this smell and all around —
walk as if worried with dog — taste
in uncertain fragrances, memories kept
outside of image, mind on a tangent with
elsewhere in bloom, in the throat but
not. My physician assumes acquaintance
with my past, refuses the heat in my half-
lit mouth; bus window
stuck to humid face, eyes open to catch
you watching from the curb. Once I took
the wrong bus, walked through Hyde Park
to the right stop to meet you. This area,
the night as I remember in your home, up
from bed past midnight for some reason,
always a professional bent to the shade.
Daylight is diffused by floating droplets
through the dark. Everything is unnatural;
the light feels unreal. I feel second-rate,
how this stuff sticks to me, how I speak it.
TYPO
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