content
content
to deteriorate,
to watch
the creeping dusk
brighten
the tv glow
by degrees,
while the hairs
above your temples
dwindle,
and the hairs
above your ears
turn grey
(i noticed them once,
the morning i left you
sleeping--
the morning i
should have
left),
and you are
content…
the inertia
(is it mine?)
leaves me shaking
and so cold,
and i can
hardly
fend off
this pall;
it folds me
into a dim corner,
knees drawn
against my chest,
when i let it.
i walk away
when i can,
look away
when i can’t,
because
if i face you,
i might
recognize
a demon
of my own
design,
too ethereal
to endure
acknowledgement,
already indistinct
and dissipating
rapidly,
and a hazy
distaste
would be all
that remained.
© 1994 by Cami Slotkin, all rights reserved
love and everything else
i should know
you’ll let me
slip quietly away
of my own accord
(you wouldn't
send me off),
to listen to
the echo of
your foregone farewell
whispering along
the empty space
in your wake,
to catch
an occasional strain of
love and everything else
that never made a difference—
you should know
you’ll be taking them;
i would have
given them
to you
anyway.
i would rather have
given them to you
without much
ceremony
to speak of,
but instead
i’ll wrap them
in glossy
black paper
and tie them
with an acutely
blue ribbon—
the kind you snap
into spirals
over the edge
of a scissor blade—
and i’ll make sure
the tape doesn’t show.
they’re yours to keep,
to lose
in the dust
under the bed.
i don’t mind.
i won’t be needing them again.
© 1997 by Cami Slotkin, all rights reserved
Cami Slotkin is an archetypal
Generation X Jewess
supporting her
struggling-Los-Angeles-writerhood
on coffee-house wages (and
the free pound a week), and
therefore obligatorily neurotic
in public. More of Cami's
musings can be found at her
own webspace--
http://home.earthlink.net/~arete/.
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