Cardboard Circle
for D.B.A.

i.
her ability to show up is my salvation
her silly attempts to keep me
to satisfy me,
as meager as are these rewards
these are all the world to me
all I have or want of the world

well aware and right about
my being hopelessly in love
why I am, I am unaware

in spite of all the things I find wrong
in spite of all I nit-pick to complain about
I am hopelessly, helplessly in love
and she is convinced of it, aware of it
and wants little or nothing to do with it
does not know what to do with it

don't know what to do with myself
in the state I'm in

fuck denying or trying to deny
that I am afflicted as I am

madly in love, blindly in love
hopeless and helpless
as much at her mercy
as a man can be

ii.
she has been herself in my presence
in my presence, upon a few occasions

I've gotten a glimpse of who she is actually
awkward and unbelievably lovely

this truth she has let me see
she often lets me- has allowed me to see

I have seen her bare, I do see her bare
one can lie with all their clothes on the floor

she has shown me herself bare
with all her clothes on

only upon reflection, do I realize
that she has been baring herself all along

she is compliant right along side
being stubborn, right along side being defiant

you know me, you've written
all those poems about me

could I, after all these verse snap shots
have failed to have gotten
a glimpse of her actually, of who she is actually
of how she actually is

I've seen her bare a time or two already
passing through my senses
passing through my time on earth

Spanish words she'd put- she puts in my mouth
are the tastiest, most memorable Spanish words
I know

something so substantive about her fills my eyes,
fills my heart with hopes, with promises

she has an ugly scar upon her left breast
left by a bite, hurt I wish to kiss, I wish to ease
to erase with love, to reverse
with affection

iii.
gave her more than half back
cake I should have kept all of

look at cardboard circle, cut from a cardboard box
it had been covered with foil
it was what the cake she brought had been sitting on

it was covered over with thick soft chocolate
after we were done partitioning it
her arms, her hands were covered in chocolate

plastic, shopping bag she'd covered it over with
to deliver it, was a mess inside also

gooey love, gooey loveliness
washed her arms and hands with a soapy towel

stubborn as she is, cooperates sometimes
in some things

resists what no one but herself is thinking
will transpire

what I am moved by, this cardboard circle
cut from a box

I stripped it and kept it to remind me
of when she was here, of something we shared

of time shared, time so much more delicious
than cake in coat of chocolate, coming off
on her and me, on anything that touched it
or that it touched

is she gooey with me, am I gooey with her
when we connect and disconnect

she and I, without end, coming together
and coming apart


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2011
Written between 11:15 a.m. and 1:11 p.m.,
on Thursday, January 20, 2011