Where Now?


Now, up the stairs.
Where now?
Now on the landing.
Copper planter. African violet.
Now along the hall.
Now in the bathroom.
Now on the seat, in the night
in the mirror, legs drawn up.
But what I meant to say—
was just a running streak of brown fur.
What I meant to say—
I wish I hadn't screamed,
parents in the other room,
brother down the hall.
I wish I could have found a glass.
I wish I could have found a bell.
What I never meant to do
was kill it. I didn't mean
to squeeze the blood between the hairs
I didn't mean to carve tomatoes,
count out peas, I didn't mean,
I never meant, with my mother
darkened brawling down the hall.
But in end when things are over,
this is where I never go.
Where years are drowned,
and things are finished. I never go
to dance in headlights,
never jangle keys, never wanted
stroking bones.