August So this is love. When it slows the rain touches everyone on their way home. Whatever was promised of pleasure costs the body more than it has. Perhaps they were right putting love into books... to look at the sky without asking a question, to look at the sea and know you won't drown today. Despite all our work, even the worst of life has a place in memory. And the fixed hours between two and five before evening are the aimless future with someone who cannot stay new. August returns us to a gap in history where our errors find the invention of a kinder regret. Almost possible: to believe these days will change more than us but the past too. Which is blue and without end. A long drive toward a remembered place. A secret left on a beach. Underwater where the voices of summer are tones of speech, requiring less of the mind. The familiar creaks in the old floorboards. Glasses left out in the storm. Our handwritten lists with every illegible worry and more. The person you think of despite their cruelty. The sun and its cruelty. How it's kept its distance and kept us alive. Not needing to know anything about what we do with the rest of desire. More How again after months there is awe. The most personal moment of the day appears unannounced. People wear leather. People refuse to die. There are strangers who look like they could know your name. And the smell of a bar on a cold night, or the sound of traffic as it follows you home. Sirens. Parties. How balconies hold us. Whatever enough is, it hasn't arrived. And on some dead afternoon when you'll likely forget this, as you browse through the vintage again and again--there it is, what everyone's given up just to stay here. Jeweled hairpins, scratched records, their fast youth. Everything they've given up to stay here and find more. Places I've Contemplated Suicide or Sent Nudes From My bed The bathrooms at the Frederick Hotel Cabs The 7-Eleven on 74th and 1st The Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art's Robert Gober opening in 2014 My writing desk The stairwells of so many buildings An elevator once My favorite wine bar (which I won't actually name) A few times at a friend's place (a friend I used to sleep with a friend who used to be a friend) Central Park The Marlton Hotel The Plaza The Starbucks on 75th and 1st My bathtub My bathroom My very sad kitchen in which I never cook and look how this is no longer a list poem. I wonder if anyone can actually tell what I am. I wonder why it is they keep looking. I wonder why they keep looking and asking me to disappear at the same time. Excerpted from Love and Other Poems by Alex Dimitrov All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
