Love in idleness

Infinitive

Summer is over.
The milk-white flowers have turned purple.
Autumn storms loom. I watch the squirrels,
try to be like them:
to gather, hide, to gather, hide
for darker hours surely will arrive.

Failing to move, idly we sit
waiting for the hours to go,
flow into each other. Decades
do not make any difference to a life
that passes with the seasons.
Unlimited the space between my upper thighs,
unlimited my thoughts from day to night to day.

Imperative

I feel I have some duty for a life
given without merit, urgently
I try to influence, find a ledge on which to lay my spirit level.
I place it where you do not work, outside.
You pile your own logs, work on your own wreckage.

Indicative

Could anything be more indicative of your melancholy
than how you wear your body, how you hold
your head to one side, fold your arms tight
when speaking or let me wait for answers
that never come. You sit for hours in the dark, staring ahead,
do not use your hands with tasks like polishing silver,
file your nails, leaf through a magazine or book.
Horizons merge with skies for you,
I crawl on hands and knees to reach.

Subjunctive

You go through life as a blind man
explores a disused mine shaft, groping for ways out
and hang on to endless ropes of the subjunctive.
You should let go, see me in the true morning light,
or by moonlight for a revelation. Sobs rack my chest
like hidden laughter. I wish you were enlightened.

Conditional

you do not have much self-esteem. It is a sickness,
for it is conditional. Your marriage is dependant
on avoiding things you don't forgive.
You do not lie. You are not changing with the weather
and your inner self does not blow in the wind.
I took your hand to shuffle and to deal, shuffle and deal.
I split the deck. You never teach me tricks
nor do you show the joker.

Summer is over, autumn storms are looming,
I gather my whitening face, hide the dark in my lap.