It

I think I might have liked to chat
with it, if it could chat –
and to have sat with it while it allowed
dispersal of the cloud

of its refusals and its rationales –
to make like pals:
kick back and clarify, ‘fess up, admit.
That’s not what it

knows how to do. It blinks there
in a muddled air
and spins illusions – rarely prettily,
and never wittily.

It seems to want more than I have.
I’ve got no salve
or balm for its apparent pains.
Its losses, gains

no longer seem like mine.
I wonder if it knows I think that’s fine.

.