What He Wants
After passion, lying
in each other's arms, almost
like lovers
reunited after a long separation,
she suddenly asks him
what he wants.
At least, it seems
sudden, because he finds himself
unprepared to answer. Worse,
he's not even sure he knows
what she means,
and it unsettles him
so much that he asks her
just that, as if to stall for time
in front of the firing squad
a prisoner might ask
for a cigarette
even though he doesn't smoke.
Later, alone
again, and because it is his habit
always to edit his life,
always thinking
of what clever thing
he could've said,
never satisfied
with what actually happens,
he reconsiders her
question, his answer.
He thinks of what he wants
as something in a dark room,
something that keeps itself just out of his
reach, while he is like someone
whose eyesight is rapidly failing,
someone who must increasingly rely on memory
to remind himself what it is
he thought he wanted.
The Flying Island, vol. 5, no. 2 (Summer/Fall 1997)
