The Devil's Asshole

All the generous hellos
match the unspoken,
the goodbyes.
Take yourself off by bus
but don’t promise
to come back.
I’m going. Get your stuff.
I’ll be far from here and there.

And she never heard
much more from him.
He kept busy
proving he was alive.
Something he’d left
for the last minute.
When the time comes
you don’t dare breathe.

He kept going
until he was farther south
than the penguins.
Here they said was
The Devil’s Asshole.
That’s how they saw it,
the holy ones
with toothless mouths.

You can have your stuff,
none of it was ever mine.
Even I was all yours,
though never conscious long.
And then all I did
was sleep and plan
what would come next.
Wouldn’t the world end?

There were the drawings,
the photographs,
the poems, parts of stories,
all about you and me
and how the cats lived
after you’d gone for good.
Or bad. The lonely cats
listening, switching their tails.

So I look around on days
I wake. I don’t know
what I ever saw like this.
The sky’s a dead weight,
the cars off the street
long enough to start to think.
I knew what words were for.
They were for you to marry.

(22 November 2012)

copyright 2012 by Floyce Alexander