Critical Mass

Too much vagary for you
in that red-headed, hooded
and bespectacled aloof scarved
bundled boy – man – scamp –
beneath voluminously pillowed parka –
pink lean dream too far from
proof to claim more than the merest

sidelong glance: that dancing keen
intelligence approaching its first
youthful prime – or so you’d
fought to think you might have
seen in that taut wary climbing eye –
that creature of the brittle brutal
February cold too covered and remote

to know: that bold brief blast too
ill-equipped to last. You’re glad you
didn’t hear him speak: he might
have squeaked: too terrible to think of.
How you took your grand dissatisfactions
up your six long flights of stairs! –
disrobed to underwear, and scrubbed

the bathroom sink and toilet, tub –
then windexed TV and computer
screens, then dusted the piano: then
attacked your taxes – feeling
somehow pitifully outclassed:
grasping at what still was gleaming in
the fading winter day: that covert

agile red-haired creature: vagary
achieving density in the availing dusk:
critical mass: ghosts his way up
from the concrete courtyard, filters,
flits through some prevailing musk:
“You wanted me?” Whispered,
husky. Prettily asked.


.