Sensitivity


I'm staring at the candle on your coffee table.
You say, "I'm not feeling it." Funny,
I'm swimming in the pool of wax directly
around the flame. You think I'm too
sensitive. That makes me weak.
Let's say for instance we were on a beach.
You want some fresh air and a pretty picture
but I just stand there, the whole ocean
pulsing from my heart to my farthest shore,
my eyes frantically counting the sky.
It takes so long to get to one. You got 
some sun and now you're done.
What's wrong with me? Sensitivity.

I stand up in your living room. You want to watch TV
after what you just said to me. You're strong.
You go on and on through life, in episodes,
sitting dutifully through commercial breaks,
but this is more than I can take, this little room,
pushed up against you, like naked skin on cold steel.
It's true, I have to leave but you don't need me to.
Maybe it's the way you close your eyes, the way you don't
let me inside you. I'm just some excitement, or
some small beauty. But you, when we're that close,
are a landscape, and I soar just above your face
looking down into you as carefully as a rescue
worker in a helicopter. I can't do that now,
knowing your closed eyes are hiding the victim
while you're thinking, tomorrow, what should I wear?
I don't have that strength, to close the doors
against the whole world and all the ways
it presses and enters. I'm not strong, but Lord
I'm brave. I've volunteered to walk away.

I'm marching now, into the gauntlet of the night,
where darkness hides nothing from my ears and eyes,
the details, every notch in each brick, the branch
that scrapes against it, one of hundreds
loosing their cries and sighs just from a breeze.
I trudge through these endless realities,
while you can't even feel the heat from that candle,
just this vague responsibility for fire safety.
You lean toward it, not noticing gravity's caress
upon your breasts, or how it strokes your cheeks
forward. You don't even see the strands of hair
that collapsed from their careful stance, exposed
to your eyes (which reflect the candlelight
as if to keep it out). You get so close but still
feel nothing, just something clicks to let you know
you're close enough and then you blow the candle's
death, quietly through your soft wet lips.


Don Zirilli
1/25/00