|
MYLES GORDON
Passing another client at the psychiatrist's office Buttoning my coat, I am walking down the thick carpeted stairs as he is walking up, unbuttoning his. We pass, turning our heads away from each other as if we were attached in the same swivel of shame. Me dressing, him undressing, as it were, to bare himself in the office at the top of the staircase as I just did; me feeling the afterglow, him anticipating the fifty minute hour, the comfort of unburdening – a winter’s indoor interlude. That’s why we turn away. To avoid in each other the truth of our inadequacy: we must come to this place not our homes not our wives not our lovers not our friends not ourselves to feel the weightlessness of our troubles rise above us like a fog. Outside, I am greeted by the cold slap of freezing December. I struggle with the cold aluminum handle to get into the car cold seeping into my belly cold of years that will never thaw. I want to be back up those stairs. Five minutes out and already my head is in my hands. Myles Gordon is a writer living in Newton Massachusetts. A past recipient of the Grolier Poetry Prize, he currently works as a television producer at a Boston network affiliate. His poetry has appeared in about two dozen journals. |
© 2005 Underground Voices |
|