What I Write About

You ask me what I write about.  I say,
a moment, isolated in time – a single star,
snowflake, touch, a door opened, or shut,
a glance between strangers, let’s say, us,

when you strode into the hotel,
checked in at the desk while I
waited for the moment you would turn
to look for me.  You were slight of build,
taut, muscular.  I felt the presence
of a man used to having his way,
making the moon rise on Vesuvius,
sending stars to fall over the bay
with its little boats huddled among the rocks.

I only knew you were some distant cousin
found in the telephone book, my research subject,
a specimen of rare butterfly pinned to wax
in a museum case, a rosy apple on the family tree.
I, too, am slight, yet sturdy, a presence
breathing light from gray-blue eyes,
rising in slow motion, shedding the hours
like snakeskin.

You are pointing, quizzical, at me, the force
of your brown eyes a laser exploding
water and light everywhere. I change into
a golden apple on the tree of our ancestors.
I say our names aloud to make sure that,
of all the people in the hotel lounge,
fat or thin, mustached or clean-shaven, jovial
or lugubrious, blowing noses or sipping coffee,
whistling a tune or stone-still,

we are who we think we are, and this is just
the kind of moment I write about, since you asked,
the kind I try to save, and savor, yet never quite
grasp at all, except on some snow-stricken night
in Chicago, discovering these words while sorting
mail or cleaning out the top drawer.  I’ll pour
a glass of wine and swallow the moment again
like a mouthful of fine red vintage waiting to be tasted
in the ice-bitten night.