I'll be late, he said,

The same way a stranger said to you earlier

It's going to rain. No emotion or regret,

Just a statement of natural, unavoidable fact-

Fact you're expected to acknowledge

And swallow without even looking up

Into the sky to read the clouds,

Or into his eyes to see

What lies there in repose

Ok, you answered, because you were only waiting for him

On the plains of autumn.

- There was the precedent of a chill but still

The memory of summer bonfires licked

At your thick cheeks.

No reason to protest when time seemed the

Only immortal thing.

But ask a stranger and they'd laugh at you

Standing there in the mist of morning

Under a sheen of grey, bus late, coffee steam

Clouding your glasses- ok? Is that all you can say? Ok?

Time is immortal, maybe- but maybe not-

Astrophysicists and metaphysicists debate

Far away from your soggy city in

Lecture halls lit by immortal incandescence,

By the moths of ancient summers,

And even they aren't sure.

He's been late before, more often than you like to admit

The period left off of a sentence, an idea adrift,

A breath waiting in anticipation for exhalation

That never really comes- just a slow leak

From a popped balloon, helium gone up

Up and away, far away, leaving the concrete

To the feet of other men

Who know where they want to be

You- ok, ok, you- you let the next bus pass, too

Because there is no rush

And your muscles seem frozen

How long before your cheeks grow thin?
You'll look in the mirror and finger the cavities

With questions in your eyes, how, how?

The metaphysicists have no answer

Nothing but a shrug as they roll up their sleeves

And prepare to wrestle to death in the mud

Made of murky sleet, of sloughed off time and

Anticipation that bears no edible fruit

Ok, you answer from the plains of autumn,

Tongue tickling the inside of your cheek

As if debating options with your teeth,

Ok, ok, there is time yet to build our fires

Before snow covers this city like the ashes

Of that bad incense we burned, late nights

Spent eating air and each other

Spent debating whether or not

We had any meaning at all

Yes, you decide, no reason or logic,

Just a gut response- yes. We do.

Meaning wrapped up in each other,

Flowing down main street like a river

And touching everyone, if only

For a single breath, the exhale you've

Been waiting for so patiently.

Meaning spanning offices and apartments,

Street vendors and school children,

Meaning so heavy it drips from us

Onto pages and houses and lovers

Who bare our body on

Later today you will find his body bare, 

Wrapped up in sheets and still wet

From dream-time, faraway travels

To places that make sense only

When you close your eyes

And wait.

He's tired, always tired, stretched

Thin as filo dough over his life,

The skin of his chest a drum-head

you beat against perpetually,

Asking for resonance.

Asking, if not for love, for time.

One day soon you'll exhale and shut the door

Quietly behind you, afraid to shatter a silence

You yourself engineered, as if

The sound of an ending would allow

The future to find you and drag you forward.

Ok, you'll say, and tuck into yourself for a few days,

Hiding behind the pause at the end of a sentence

Before you decide to start again.

Ok, you'll say, and board the next bus

Away from the plains of autumn

Just as the last leaves begin

To gently fall.