Well, so much for desire.
I'm going to read you some poems about a breakup
and its aftermath.
Midnights is a book of prose poems.
Each of the sections is without a title.
But the end has, instead of a title, a time and a place.
And much of the time, as you might guess,
is around the hour of midnight with some exceptions.
"Midnights."
"The yogi, trained as a shiatsu master,
doesn't meet my gaze when she first wakes here to help me.
Preparation is all.
Attention is required.
I learned the point in the hand where the folded third finger
presses against a crisis.
I learned the ground is felt with the toes of splayed
and the four corners of each foot planted.
She discovers, on my head, where foolishness knocked me
at the shallow end of a pool.
My master is swimming in the pool now.
She has left me to practice improvement.
The shiatsu master is a vase with pale blue irises
when she works, legs folded under her opposite knee
as in a tea ceremony which I am not
prepared to attend, unfortunately.
Master, I am on our mat and following instructions.
Unfortunately, I'm fortunately taking prescriptions
three times a day.
I am not tired from them, which means, unfortunately,
I must stay on them.
Poetry, fortunately, goes on and on, online,
in chapbooks, handset on handmade paper,
and pressed into bark.
While the proprietors of the small presses
and their disciples assemble to open hearts from one
end of the universe to the other without need of me
or anyone resembling me.
Fortunately, this is a relief, even
to those few who wept when I wept and slept when I slept.
Unfortunately, those who chose not to bow when I bowed
have to find someone else to pour hot water on.
Unfortunately, that will be easy.
But fortunately, making such a gesture
means they will never be masters.
Master, I am on our mat.
I feel as you proposed my heart with my poems.
I feel under my chin for the end of the heart meridian
and find many others there who are unfortunately
in much worse shape.
And I'm ashamed of myself.
And make tea for them as you demonstrated every morning,
which, unfortunately, I failed to observe keenly enough
and now imitate poorly, if at all, what it
means to be a vessel.
The love that travels along the pathways of the body,
may the sweet wind returned to you.
May fortune have it that all your senses
awake through the breath, through the nose.
And may I apologize for filling the air with perfume
too heady for one such as you.
If only I could spare you these outpourings.
Believe me, it is fortunate that I
know that the tea must flow in one direction at one time
to flow in all directions at once.
I know but cannot say, cannot do.
My energy, my master, disperses.
Mellow miso, seaweed, daikon, ginger, and other root
vegetables, you wish them for me to ground me
as I wish you heaven on Earth.
If ever I were to touch you, fortunately, it
would not be on this Earth.
Unhappily, if that is the right word,
I have cracked the bowl of the one slave
I am permitted to touch on this Earth
with a scream so high pitched as to be inaudible,
except that, unfortunately, she heard it and lies in bed now
with a new lover's hands over her ears.
I pray that when her new lover moves down
the pathways of my lover's body that the unfolded third finger
of love, my master, releases our crisis."
Ash Avenue, Tucson, darkest part of the night.