Driftwood

Maybe I could forget.

Maybe if I stood in front of Russian paintings
hanging in the museum
that catch the light shining
on the people pictured there,
and the light shining within them:
girls in doorways,
grandmother at the kitchen table,
lovers in the lane.
Paint thickened into 3 dimensional forms –
you could walk into those paintings
or the people painted walk out …

Maybe if I moved
to a little house in the country,
German built, brick from real clay,
enduring, enduring, enduring,
full of kraut fixed just right,
immersed in laughter of lovely solid women,
bundles of babies, sun-burnished men,
among the fields that roll up to the houses,
so close, you could almost touch the grain
from the window …

Maybe if I ate bread and pasta every day
at Angelo’s pizzeria downtown,
so plain on the outside,
while the warmth inside surrounds
and enters you like a low fire
and a glass of white Zinfandel in Autumn,
when the tomatoes are rich and pungent,
blended with cheese upon cheese,
overabundance of harvest
poured into each slice of pizza
that the waiter with the lovely eyes hands me,
with his broken English saying,
“I make this plate for you”…

Maybe if I sat in church everyday
in the beautiful old cathedral
where part of the mass is still in Latin,
and prayed for the suddenness of salvation,
final, absolute –
the bright light beyond comprehension
the wiping away of all tears …

No, it’s no use.
Beautiful distractions only
make me long harder for you.
Perhaps I’ll not forget,
or quite repent, just yet.