I Wanted More Than I Could Steal

Instead the opening, the end, the tunnel
through which the breath passes alone.

Animals shoulder the glossy, pubescent
light. There, between the stacked pages

& the clean press of our jeans, the future
is a passage closing in pornsong. There

you dig, you cover the space under moss.
You anticipate your meals like a spider.

Arrival is not the great seizure of hands,
devoted pure, & we could not always save

the pages from rain. The morning just so,
our smiles start on lovers, the simple,

the scenery as we descend the new valley.
Are we asleep or has this world expired,

exits without structure? Worldly a week,
we browsed magazines: this explains

the absence of our skin, a softness so great
we please the day steaming south. Nothing

of our eyes, which continue as a corridor
continues. We're sleeping, we're asleep,

we mouth our wet trampoline, white legs,
white thighs, the plea of white cotton there.

You, who could be so cruel & not simply
in our dreams. For this we look as if looking

to our god. We were worldly, we were weak.
Pornography explains the unhappy paging

of our hands, our smiles now boats drifting
from the harbor. From the harbor our train

leaves to sidle the coast. & our bodies,
they know nothing of tides nor the surge.

& you in the early light, not at the station,
not flowers when our train does not arrive.

Copyright © 2008 Michael Robins All rights reserved
from Columbia Poetry Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission