The Inches

Sitting here, mere inches separating us
Inches that will always separate us
My atoms ache for your atoms
I keep staring at your tiny fingers
Typing away furiously, and
I'm just about ready to swallow my keyboard
I beg the universe
And you turn to me
Your voice strained
From all the coughing
You ask me for a lozenge
I want to give so much more
But for now a lozenge it is
You extend your hand and then,
Just like that, for a brief moment
The inches disappear
The candy takes my heart
and everything else with it
You turn, the inches separate us again
I'm back to sitting here
Loving you like hell.
And this sorry poem, like my love,
Does not go anywhere.

from Words For Departure

I have remembered you.
You were not the town visited once,
Nor the road falling behind running feet.

You were as awkward as flesh
And lighter than frost or ashes.

You were the rind,
And the white-juiced apple,
The song, and the words waiting for music.

*
You have learned the beginning;
Go from mine to the other.

Be together; eat, dance, despair,
Sleep, be threatened, endure.
You will know the way of that.

But at the end, be insolent;
Be absurd--strike the thing short off;
Be mad--only do not let talk
Wear the bloom from silence.

And go away without fire or lantern
Let there be some uncertainty about your departure.

--Louise Bogan