Walker, and Walk-ee

Rather as if I were walking a dog
and the dog was me – I am
a divided trajectory: one of me pulls
and the other holds back: one fills
the terrible sense of his lack

with a trance-like immersion in
redolences that the other can’t fathom
could ever attract; one loves all traces
and tracks of spectacular acts
and avowals and pleas: onto which –

to contribute! – he pees: the other
is pleased by efficiencies: getting
from A on to B up to Z with alacrity;
one revels in sweat and in smell,
neither of which makes the other

feel well; one leaves deposits the other
must seize (like poems put into
anthologies). My bias is clear: I find
the funky one dear. But I’m not
unthankful the other one’s here.

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