Interstitial Selves/Headcrack

The content of this poem is probably not appropriate for this blog but I'm going to post it anyway.  To some extent, however, i think it is a fitting counterpoint to my poem We Know Each Other.  Parts of Interstitial Selves also remind me of the aspects of the city that I describe in Displacement, though the narrator in former poem has certainly been infected by the movement of the city much more than the narrator in the latter poem.

Interstitial Selves

Inside the café

I look out on to the small portion of the city grid that unfolds before my eyes:

Beyond the softness of my translucent reflection on the window pane

Towards the sea of black coats, umbrellas and moving shapes that grace the landscape.

Another person,

Another life:

Another unread novel rotting on the shelf

Passed over by all who would read it;

Passed by on the city street.

Can you feel the rain between us

As you move on

Pretending not to see the face that stares past my prints

Shining off the window after these longing fingers pull away?

I have seen it in your face when you look down or straight ahead

And pass by the others in your bubble as if living in your own dream:

Merely a distant gaze,

You face the throng,

Face desire

Face the unconscious need that drives the surrounding movement forward

Towards the discovery of its own emptiness that renews its search and its longing.

You do not share this longing:

Dwelling in this space between the others

Content to be carried along by the forces beyond your control

How I wish your calmness would infect the world around you

So as to part this ocean of desirous chaos

That I might walk to you

Look you in the eyes

And smile…