COHABITATION

They’ll meet life’s three intentions on a streetcorner:

an old man’s tobacco pipe, still smoking, children’s graffiti smeared across a wall,

the damp calves of women walking in the rain.

They’ve wandered the whole night

looking for the signboard of the small white hotel—

no luck till sunrise.

Then a mistake:

without praying

they sleep together in one bed,

indifferent to the sunlight outside

and later its cruel rays,

falling asleep with a smile

as touching as if dead,

too lazy even to recall

anything tender,

then rise and walk through the streets

until they come to the tall door

of an unmarked building.

So they vanish

just as mother prophesied

before dying.

Yet their hearts

still crave the chance

to interpose that moment from the past,

their talk all the time hinting

like a snowy day

tiptoeing in from the mist

to peel and feed an orange to a patient.

Those flowers in the greenhouse

blooming through red and purple frost

ignite the unforgettable.

Let this ambience blaze.

Let them

swoon awhile longer.

—Go

give them the rhythm

but not awareness.

Don’t let this dim

the window of their cohabitation.

Don’t let them lose

that stunning vision of the empty field.

When they stroll down the middle of the street toward dawn,

they see life. Life

is that streetsweeper pausing

to watch them pass.

In blue coveralls,

pipe set in his teeth, he stands upright at morning—