Behind the closed door are the women talking,
In a manner all their own.
“I am listening ,” I say.
“All my life have I been listening
From the other side of the door.
Now will I go down in the elevator,
Down and down will I go into the street
And I too will do some talking.
To the wind and to the trees
And to the stars in hiding will I talk.
As I walk I will talk to the light
As it fades into night
And the fading light will talk to me.
Amid shuttered shops and rushing cars
Will I walk and talk and receive
The incessant messages of the bereft
And lonely: to men with missing
Teeth and fallen women who have
Spilled the contents of their pocketbooks
Into dirty snow; to dogs set on fire just for sport;
To hot air balloons and sorrows
Irreducible by time and to women
Who die alone in single rooms scanning
The unrevealing sky for Jesus
And to women in asylums beaten unconscious
Before being tossed into rivers that smell
Of the stink we have imposed.
I will talk to the mortuary slabs on which they lie,
To old men lifting heavy bags on forlorn streets,
To my obese brother now deceased
About the need for death that he had sought it so.
I will talk to extinct frogs and birds of prey
Who have forsaken their pursuit and report back
For your take on what it is that I have found.”February 2004