Project Tapestry
Copyright 2000 e. blakemore
(obscurities of love)

The Catalogue of Love

I, the lonely one, pound the ground in my hobnail
Boots.   And somewhere in my memory of the future
She communicates through her soles
To the earth.   I will never see her again.

I am wrong.   She entices, she delights, she
Will always be there in the back of the right side
On my left arm, out my left eye with all my left-
Overs and under my thoughtless influence.

It is just that way.   I can see her     I can see places
In the background     under a nightlight.   The haze of
Smoke and the cab-light of an old pickup truck,
The smell of hayfever and motor oil in straw.

"These are tools, take care of them,"  someone says
As I am wondering, what will I use them for?   A box
With old divisions and sweet-smelling cedar.   At first
I am afraid to use the divisions;   Later, fear not to.

I am not wrong.   She weaves in and out it seems
It negates.   She is not herself.   I take long drives
By myself;  with her phantoms.   She is back there
She is locked in time and thrown away keys.

But as I look I see that I am there.   I always am.
Telescopes are not for lovers.   The moon is something else
Somewhere in a long tube.   I've never touched anything
In that narrow place.   We must have missed some

Clockwork motion.   The moon took a left turn
Into forever.   The moon did something, but they
Say the moon doesn't do that.   And I saw it
Through their telescope, her narrow space.   

They can't explain that one away.

(sole train)