We are all too ready to live with it: the nondescript
House on the barren road, trees of no distinction,
The colorless lake beneath the colorless sky,
So long as it seems to work. It has the
Force of inertia, the pleasures of talk
About weather. In its familiar grip
We can lie about ourselves and not be hurt,
Watch clouds hold level in a crystal ball.
But when it doesn’t work, when dust
Blows along the road, the lake kicks up, the trees
Flail like the devil’s paintbrush,
We hate it—whispering to each other
How dull we’ve become, how hideous
Your face, my face, our lutulent desire
To be and see and feel and know and touch
Never too much, lest we want more
Than stabs of love and momentary wounds
Healing so soon we soon forget they were.
                                     We were
Once strangers with our whole lives fit to tell.