Ins & Outs
Ups & Downs
for D.B.A.

i.
don't mind dying
in love with her
attached to her

when mom died
I had Marion to connect with
who I was connected to

because of her, because of this
our love, saving me,
saved me from coming apart

this young woman
Holy Spirit-provided

she and poetry
poetry she inspires
such strong medicine
heaven prescribes
against fear and pain
against the possibility
of letting go
against disenchantment

by love and ink in pens
anesthetized

with these and her,
engaged in love making
which is unending

with her and these, lubricated
like hairs of roots, like root caps

what they are coated with
enabling them to pass easily
through soil

want her to have a baby for me
want her and me to marry

want her to acquire her PhD
want to acquire one too
before I expire

ii.
all that or all this privacy
house to myself

her all alone within it with me
too much to fill in, to fill out

overwhelmed by the thought of it
by this to make use of
to take advantage of

instead of choosing to fill it in, to fill it out
to take over, take advantage
of such an opportunity

she decided instead to be dwarfed by it
diminished by it

she could just as well have seized the day
instead she chose to be intimidated by it

I was uncomfortable, she told me later
unlike she was with me when we met
in public, in a café

she was delightful then, swept me away
though ever so subtly, what she exuded
her sexuality

I could look upon her, could bear her
only with difficulty

what sparks would our being alone make fly
I excitedly wondered

notified about her visit
only a little while before she arrived

came following an attack I made
an attempt I made to prepare myself
my house

washed myself from head to toe
with feather brush, removed cob webs
from every room, from high and low

with one brush made a shit-scarred bowl
like new
with another brush, made bath tub
and the tiles about it white too

cleaned wet dust, dry dust off bathroom floor
here and there, addressed this and that
in preparation for her arrival

don’t know who it was she sent
she never showed up
was it a little sister who did, whom she sent

sent to pick up
can of peanuts I had, evening before,
purchased for her
nothing more than this to accomplish

to get home again, what filled her mind
all that was on her mind

she’d been out in her mother’s car
from 3 and it was half-past-seven


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2010
Written on Tuesday, April 28, 2010
between 8:55 a.m. and 11:00 a.m.