Rough Stones to Lift
for T.L.C.

i.
have I or haven’t I
the right to feelings I’m feeling
to this happiness you’re generating

hearing from you generates
attachment to you generates
tied by sentences by poetic lines

have I someone after all
to lift poetry with, to carry the cross of it

I can this instant, burst into joyous tears
over what I do have and don’t have

over what I fear you might do
if I attempted to catch it,
to hold it in my hand, mist that it is

fear you’d disallow it

how can a man 55, a woman 22
fit together
fight like we fight, feel what we feel

are we not on earth now
inside minutes passing
inside the seed of time

like seeds with two sides, in two halves
avocado or yin and yang

ii.
it seems she is as intelligent as I am
it seems she is my intellectual equal
even if her father is my age

I know no one on earth
whom I’d more gladly fuck, more readily fuck

what a miracle that would make
what a miracle that would be

however long away from me,
when she returns, she’s number one

her place in my bed, in my head
I admit her, permit her her seat


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2010
1:28 p.m. 04.01.10