The Long Woman Bathing
Although he cannot admit it even to himself,
these are the years whose possibility he has always dreaded.
The man in the room listens to cars and rain, unfolded
maps that have failed him, lines tracing absence along the dark
…..intersate.
If a friend were to call him on the telephone,
the man would drawl, “It's like I'm being stalked in a dream.”
In the grey light of the television it happens that he awakens
on the floor and studies his overcoat hanging, remembering the old
…..self.
He is twenty again and running in the museum from room to white
…..room
where he finds her in the Bonnard, the long woman bathing in the
…..lilac water.
And were it possible at any moment he might cry out:
I refuse her ghost, I refuse to dart like a deer in the open.
by Maurice Kilwein Guevara
from Touching the Fire
Anchor Books, 1998