Your Letter
It said that, the truth be told,
you were dead tired of classical music
and that you wanted me the way fall
leaves want the ground, that hard.
Then I remembered the stoop
of your shoulders, your wide nose
and eyes, how your fingers curved,
your Aristotelian grace.
At first your desire worked.
Like Lazarus, I got up, walked faster,
a new haircut, new shoes.
But I didn’t answer. For days after,
the phone rang and I let it.
I made soups, took walks.
When the black cat appeared,
I refused to believe she was not omen,
and walked backward into the house.
I tell you I shall not untie my desire
for I’ve spent a thousand nights
knotting it. My wool is neatly carded.
It is never out of date to say
that memory will suffice:
you sitting here beside me once at dusk,
that performance last fall in the garden,
your leap from the high ledge into the river
the terrible seconds before I saw you again.
by Gene Zeiger
from Leaving Egypt
White Pine Press 1995
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