Last thing I thought I wanted
in life
invite the adolescent to tea,
who knew
what was true
and anything else wouldn’t do,
who’d sit with her
a minute more than the
calendrical reality,
yet now will I pause and beckon
with a little twitch of the shoulder
you don’t want to beckon too broadly,
the very weakness of gesture
you may trace to the cool required
balanced by warm desire,
I do not think of her much
I’m almost unable to think of her
a curtain drops in front of her if she is anywhere near,
yet I beckon with that one shoulder
and in so doing she tends to flicker
in my own person,
and then I don’t think that I come
as such a surprise to her,
