Whereabout

I sit in darkness. The room,

a converted garage where we keep 

our bikes on the wall and our desks

kissing each other near the bookshelves,

is still,  although the Mountain View train

rumbles through a few miles away around six

and my dog will on occasion moan and then sigh

and lick his lips, his teeth clacking together after he yawns, 

and then lick himself until I can’t block out the sound anymore 

and demand that he stop but yet it is still, a stretched out

place where I am convinced the world is far away 

and I am in some separate place accessible and

inaccessible even to myself and I work to 

find clues as to my whereabouts, pulling

out a slice of memory—an uneasy 

wrenching of the heart, but

 it is really the present that 

both haunts and invites, 

the past crowding in, 

wanting to be included while the  current

moments want to stay untouched and unharmed.

And in the pauses of discussion between the two, a staggering 

around like two drunken teenagers wanting to have their way, I let the stillness 

quiet them, do the work I cannot accomplish on my own and light

a candle, its light flickering in brilliant warm gold while night 

blinks open its eyes a bit and dark eases itself 

out of the room.