it's never enough

In love with Adrienne Rich (go die in a field of flowers Mary Oliver).

On this earth, in this life, as I read your story you're lonely.
Lonely in the bar, on the shore of the coastal river
with your best friend, his wife, and your wife, fishing
lonely in the prairie classroom with all the students who love
you. You know some ghosts
come everywhere with you yet leave them unaddressed
for years. You spend weeks in a house
with a drunk, you sober, whom you love, feeling lonely.
You grieve in loneliness, and if I understand you fuck in
loneliness.
--IX

You cannot live on me alone
you cannot live without me
I'm nothing if I'm just a roll of film
stills from a vanished world
fixed lightstreaked mute
left for another generation's
restoration and framing I can't be restored or framed
I can't be still I'm here
in your mirror pressed leg to leg beside you
intrusive inappropriate bitter flashing
with what makes me unkillable though killed
--9