After classes on the Chekhov story
I put my book down and open it
and say “….. page 53.”
Lying on each other like dry skins,
the pages whisper,
my head fills with the sting of
peppermint from a girl’s tongue.
of the sky turns gray.
We are leaning next to each other
The top in old steel chairs, we are gray.
Shadows hang in a corner.
The words on the paper, like our breath,
belong to the lost altars of blood,
to a soldier’s mouth.
Someone swallows, someone begins to cry.
Ordinary children, ordinary lives.
I have taught this story for days,
my hands leaving the desk to hold something
and offer it as a vision, my fists
motionless on the wood. This anger of
understanding is an empty thing, this
hatred of words because they say something
is a useless bridge between us
when we could kiss.
What have we given or taken, and not touched?
It is growing colder near the windows.
Classes, leaves, clouds, are tearing away.
And now I need strange things to happen-
red moon eating itself in a black mirror,
river foaming under a cabin,
“… Stupid . . . stupid!” filling a Captain’s head.
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