poem: the sense of reading a Japanese novel.

the spangled aspect of things, the clench which will — always be with
me, laying too long in bed too much a half hour, the ocean mad
and white with spray on the beach — always in my
head. when we walked on the marina in the salt-air I thought, this is
a place I could live. the light change, the ocean was a man’s hand a woman’s
hand reached around the curve of the earth, putting me in the hotel room
in my place. this book has the same lonely sense of autumn the strange
heavy significance of small things: I lay in bed until 11, reading it and thinking
of my to-do list. in the shower I will imagine him holding me from behind.
the world will slip away like this, the clench in my teeth being bitten apart
by his hand and his tongue; in the book they live on an island where
memory is forgotten, in the world I live in my mother’s house and my
future is remade so often all memory is forgot.

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