CUT-OUT

Seeing an old girlfriend’s

new boyfriend is like looking

at a shadowy cut-out of myself

in a maze of similar avenues
& I think, “Do they compare the good
with the bad? the bad with the good?”

Time steers from our sides, is often

at a standstill, yet moves onward

the way that Good News

never comes too late; the way one

may look past you as if you were

not there, arousing a peculiar passion.

I see them together in a beautiful park

on an occasional shaky video—

sudden laughs; their eyes:

absent, grave & empty?

He, tugging at her negligee,

the reflections of the camera

in both of their sunglasses,

mimicking my “four eyes.” It is as if

cameras have been rigged to capture

all answers, to expel all mysteries,

like a house with secrets, walls with ears

& search-lights.

Many of these boyfriends appear

as if their wishes have been granted—

the girlfriend, on the contrary,

surrounded by a grayish-grim imbroglio?

What a treasure to have as pure a

conscience as a babe’s—my curiosities

& observations, like great thundering boots,

& when I see one wearing an iron key

on a ribbon around one’s neck, I think,

“That may be trouble,” like a false rumor,

for it is from Experience that I have

often caught that big bright eye

peeping through the keyhole, & I

cannot help but to wonder if there

are always saucy rogues

suspended around every relationship,

as if struck by frost, like a meaning

that never intended to mean anything.