Jack Oates

The Waiting

Can I see you now?
Can I?
 
Here, now, and then not.
A flicked switch that brought the moon
under the eaves.
But where did you go
when the spring flipped the cam
and cut off the flow?
 
Farads fall from a burning wire
and I am drawn to you.
I bump my muzzle on the glass
with a plink-plink.
Just a silhouette, you are,
bleeding into the tungsten hum.
I am blinded to the future –
a tented charlatan
with an imprint of a coin upon my palm.
 
Can I see you now?
Can I see?
 
Ah. I see you now.
Pressing lightly on the Mojave air;
Dustbowl pretty in the purple shade
as the sun sighs behind the rocks.
It leaves you counting stars
until the numbers run out
and the coyotes rush in.
 
The sandstone red that runs in your eyes
mirrors the roll of the long iron mile;
a bell rung railroad
that rocked you down from those Toytown malls
and neat, new fingers
to this quiet, prairie dog reverie.
I have known those lines before –
swaying in an amber skin
with a clickety-clack,
a heartbeat from a foundry
wrestling with that burning ore.
 
Can I see you now?
Can I see you?
 
 
Wait. I see you anew.
Standing mute in the ballroom swirl-
beautifully choked like a drawstring purse.
Glitter stuck to your puckered cheek
from a Bowie streak upon your brow,
beside a look that says the dance will be slow
but short
and your heels will wear down
before the bowstring sheds
the last of its mane.
 
Scuffed soles brush your tender toes;
the white noise of the waltz grows quiet
as the darkness swallows you,
and you swoon into silence.

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