Hesitations Outside the Door

I

I'm telling the wrong lies,

they are not even useful.

The right lies would at least

be keys, they would open the door.

The door is closed; the chairs,

the tables, the steel bowl, myself

shaping bread in the kitchen, wait

outside it.

u

That was a lie also,

I could go in if I wanted to.

Whose house is this

we both live in

but neither of us owns

How can I be expected

to find my way around

I could go in if I wanted to,

that's not the point, I don't have time,

I should be doing something

other than you.

m

What do you want from me

you who walk towards me over the long floor

your arms outstretched, your heart

luminous through the ribs

around your head a crown

of shining blood

This is your castle, this is your metal door,

these are your stairs, your

bones, you twist all possible

dimensions into your own

IV

Alternate version: you advance

through the grey streets of this house,

the walls crumble, the dishes

thaw, vines grow

on the softening refrigerator

I say, leave me

alone, this is my winter,

I will stay here if I choose

You will not listen

to resistance, you cover me

with flags, a dark red

season, you delete from me

all other colours

v

Don't let me do this to you,

you are not those other people,

you are yourself

Take off the signatures, the false

bodies, this love

which does not fit you

This is not a house, there are no doors,

get out while it is

open, while you still can

vI

If we make stories for each other

about what is in the room

we will never have to go in.

You say: my other wives

are in there, they are all

beautiful and happy, they love me, why

disturb them

I say: it is only

a cupboard, my collection

of envelopes, my painted

eggs, my rings

In your pockets the thin women

hang on their hooks, dismembered

Around my neck I wear

the head of the beloved, pressed

in the metal retina like a picked flower.

vo

Should we go into it

together / IfI go into it

with you I will never come out

If I wait outside I can salvage

this house or what is left

of it, I can keep

my candles, my dead uncles

my restrictions

but you will go

alone, either

way is loss

Tell me what it is for

In the room we will find nothing

In the room we will find each other

You refuse to own

yourself, you permit

others to do it for you:

you become slowly more public,

in a year there will be nothing left

of you but a megaphone

or you will descend through the roof

with the spurious authority of a

government official,

blue as a policeman, grey as a used angel,

having long forgotten the difference

between an annunciation and a parking ticket

or you will be slipped under

the door, your skin furred with cancelled

airmail stamps, your kiss no longer literature

but fine print, a set of instructions.

If you deny these uniforms

and choose to repossess

yourself, your future

will be less dignified, more painful, death will be

sooner,

(it is no longer possible

to be both human and alive): lying piled with

the others, your face and body j

covered so thickly with scars

only the eyes show through.