At Work

Isn't it better that you work
in your room
and I in mine, meeting only
for late night korma, pizzas, noodles
paid for with whatever we can find
at the back of sofas, on windowsills,
at the bottom of our vases and jugs
circled with the left-over green
of flowers long since dead?

Isn't it better we work
this way — alone, until we meet
not saying how differently we make
sense out of the air, fighting
our separate devils that enter
without a key. Ruthless, drunken,
agressive past, lies, ex-lovers,
childhood fears, tangled secrets unspoken,
all written forever in both our rooms?

We meet bleary-eyed, silent —
each knowing the other well.

Copyright © 2004 Enda Wyley All rights reserved
from Poems for Breakfast
Dedalus Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission