This is my before.

Five minutes, do you have,
on the winter that makes her feel six.

I can't tell you stories.
Having said this, I, ex-junky,
Same carpet, the color of a smell.

I was a little boy. I'd rather not go.
Instead, it was a place to terrorize.
Everywhere, childhood.
And your body won't forget.

Thirty and so unhappy, it was painful.
It all seems cleaner, I suppose.
The time, I might have enjoyed it--of teenagers.

Either that you forget your body, driven.
Maybe he pretended worse things.
Hate is a strong word.

I would interrupt her of fiction.
The big screwdriver, ex-junky.

Hands were simple, what's to blame?
An image, sunlight. First it takes time.

This is my before.

©1999 R. Bouchard

Well

That was not ours, although we understood,
Stirred as from far away.
Why did you glance back?
Why did you turn back? Turning it above the earth.

The slow feet vanished, like a long new thread--
But it was more than that--with the light,
Something human bewilders.

That this thick air translated, mimicked,
Mastered and summoned the trouble--

Grasp the trace, and your glance,
On either side,
Swept me back.

Sand, now having caught the sea,
The dark, half-awakened world,
Movements cut apart.

You happened before the fire.
The dark, cut by the trace of your path,
Frame of myself.

Mastered was she--grasp among the live flowers of air.
She measured something human, if you know rain.

What was it you saw? Filled, drips deep air
That I shall imagine.

Now having happened never again.

©1999 R. Bouchard