GOAT SONG, I HAVE BUT GOAT SONG...

I.

You drive away. I read until the story’s done,
Sit in the dusk and think of you. The fevered week past,
When you stayed, and cooked, and cleaned, and stroked my cheek,
Is gone as surely as the day’s long-setting sun.
This is your life: the crowd of long-time friends, the bars,
The late nights, and the quest for greater speed and thrills
Along the famous twisting, turning roads. It chills me:
Thinking of your bike amid the crowd of cars.
So I am well again, and once again you're free.
I’ll take the flood of faces, new names, all in stride—
Forget my instincts, thoughts of holding back the tide—
At last learn how to take the lower road... We’ll see.
So many things I knew have been reversed, upended—
For now, I'll do my best to keep your garden tended.


II.

How strange. The one thing I can count on when
I’m with you fails me when I’m on my own.
No memory, no hope can raise my flesh—
It’s you alone who stirs, sets it alight.
I’ve known it all along, but now and then
I cannot sleep when I must sleep alone—
My longing seeks immediate expression.
But you are what I need—you do it right:
One kiss, one flickering tongue, my man of men,
Your every touch arouses me afresh—
These weeks are one long journey to those nights.
Our weekends carry me three days at most:
My body, soul, and spirit all are toast…


III.

It’s laziness, I guess. The work accumulates.
I brew the coffee, glance at magazines,
And wish I didn’t have so much to do,
That it was done and I was free to go.
I sink into one of my sullen states:
Not quite depressed, not happy—in between:
It’s more a tender gray than black or blue.
My mood swings up and down, and to and fro.
How did I wind up in such sorry straits?
My heart’s been living well beyond its means.
Reduced, I find I only think of you
And long to have you close, not dream, but know.
Two days are not so long I can’t survive;
But all alone, I seem to fail to thrive.


IV.

Now he is sick and I am far away,
Not there to tend him, as he tended me,
And he so sure he knows what he must do:
Worse off in bed, he says, and I must go.
What’s to become of him? I cannot stay
To make him see some sense. What chance that he
Will keep his own condition well in view?
With heavy heart, I hit the muddy road.
And why should he care what I think or say?
He’s lived his own life long enough to be
Set in his ways, no doubts onboard, or few—
And interference only fuels woe.
So let me hold my tongue and bide my time
Till contradiction seems less like a crime.
C