Wednesday, July 11, 2007 at 4:21am

So I don’t know

So I don’t know what to make of her anymore;
she’s the one who I’ve known for so long.
The one who I could tell anything to
but didn’t
because she already knew it all.

It happened many years ago
when I began to lose track of her–
We stood together in her living room
and hugged goodbye on the German soil,
the home we both knew as well as any.

She went off to her holy land of deserts and
temples and ancient texts, and
I went back to my holy land of deserts and
strip malls and red-dirt poetry
and felt just as glowy and full of light as any
disciple.

The years went by and there was the army,
men, women, baptists, jews, muslims, drugs, depression
wars, car bombs, classes, Hebrew, Spanish
Quebec and North Carolina between our lives
and in no particular order.

I wonder if she doesn’t know what to make of
me either,
if the look in my eyes reminds her of the desert now
when maybe it used to remind her of the forest
Or if she wonders why I speak more softly,
and seem more pulpy and malleable,
wonders how I let the years beat me down
so badly.

I will ask her when we meet soon,
and we will listen to music and smoke
and talk about what we can make
of each other.