stopped because I was breathing wrong, too hard, some

pain in my side, organ-deep, bladelike. He had been

running, too. Black suit. No sweat. Stopped to ask me

something. Behind me. Behind the bench. I didn’t see him,

though there was a shadow, I remember, later, must have

noticed it later but not at first. The light behind me. A man

behind me. Even cramped up and airless I was thinking of

you, too full of this thinking to let anything inside. The holes

in me were not functioning, no eating for days, no blood for

weeks, and not speaking or shitting, nothing going in or

out, and I could not hear him, this other man, his shadow

thrown over my head like a hood, like something you put

on an animal, hawk or horse, to put a limit on its fear, its

possible fear, anticipating it, he laid his hand on me, on my

shoulder, while I was, as I said, listening to this thought of

you, endless thought, I was trying to get to the end of it,

and he touched my shoulder, he put his hand exactly where

you had put it, that time, behind me, behind me as he was

behind me, remember? That room? The smell of sage and

the tea steeping in the hot cups? And I made a sound, I cried

out, and he took his hand away, his shadow shifted, letting

some of the sun fall back on me, and I turned, the light in

my eyes and him so tall saying Is this yours, meaning the

headphones curled white in his palm, torn somehow from

my own ears; I hadn’t noticed or known, I couldn’t recall

music at all, hearing it or wanting it, he said he saw them

fall, and so they must be mine, and I was staring, I was

blinded, I was hurting where he had touched me, where you

had touched me, and he was waiting, he was expecting me

to speak, a man brought into the world where all men had

vanished and he kept standing there and I would have to,

I knew it, I would have to someday, soon, now, try to listen,

again, to a man, another man, to make sense of him, of

words, of a world in which a man could touch me, could bring

me music, could insist on music, that it was mine, that I take

it, that I look him in the eye, where there suddenly was that

other star

THE VALLEY

THE VALLEY

I run every day       that’s how I       lost       the weight.

You knew me       one hundred pounds       at the most

you cooked a steak I ate       the fried bit of fat and left

the rest

I had bread for dinner and ripped berries from the stems even milk

was

too       expensive then you       brought me

red wine I       was

sick on it       so       never again