The flowers on the deli counter
Are as dead as a doll is living
I’m wasted as the greenish week-old water
Wasted on you
The cat looks at me like you sometimes did
A question claws from behind its eyes
It peers up at me like a child
No words to adorn the air in meaning or light
Desperate as you were to ask
Just as determined not to hear the answer
I, too, have a question
Writing itself out in blackletter font
Inked into my retina
Like a teenager’s first tattoo
And so I see you
I know you and choose not to be you
For all you are and aren’t, I stare
At the sliver of sky
Between 400 year old buildings on a hill
And I ask, I stare
At the woman in the reflection of the deli window
At night, in the florescence, over dressed
I am asking