DJ Dolack
What They Want Me to Tell You
It’s one of those things
that could go on and on.
You might be waiting for someone to return
and it might take half your day,
years of dog-eared pages
on the shelves.
So far,
today’s bowls in the sink.
*
But I suppose something could happen in there,
the room with so much light.
With your hands, you might
create a space and say
I love you this much
without knowing who it will be.
You might say I love you, for Christ sake —
I love you out through the back window
down the fire escape
to the neighbor’s yard,
I love you
how the elderly love bakeries —
in the way they say cake.
*
It’s one of those things
you might know a little about —
real eye contact in the mirror, reading
in low light.
People quoting
when their empathy is down;
people marking their lives by epiphanies.
Plainsongs under the breath
when doing those dishes;
Quixotic foreplay.
*
Something is not right when the clouds are like this
and everything is clear.
Night is coming in,
or you are moving towards it.
Sugar granules
under your bare feet, roman candles
in the distance become.
*
If you’d like to play prison, I’ll go out for milk.
You set the table for the sum
of who you think
we should have been by now.
Remember the cattle in the freezer, the onions,
syrup and news.
Out in the yard
the deeply-carved initials let us know
we’re not the first version,
so why whittle?
I have given up the service.
So google me.
*
Tell me what you want;
my envelopes are piling unopened too.
The rain water is filtered;
the doctor is real in.
If I sit up long enough it becomes mourning;
if I
say abundance, tell me
what do I mean?