Analysis (new work-in-progress)

analysis

if things were as simple as this-

a world divided into givers and takers-

you and i might be face to face

on opposite sides of the gameboard

 playing out the last round in the only

language we'd learned, tactics  not

meant to inflict deep wounds.

but the mestres tell us it can't be so,

that i, for example, am round as an overfed 
guppy,  at risk of bursting from life -

and yet so hungrily

 return to your door

with my beggar's tin, in my
 Halloween rags,  wading in my wicked
pool of melancholy. as for you, my dear, 

 the word is not yet out  -  so silence is
safer, and lingering in the sunlight,
 listening harder for the pinching

                     cues. 

miriam adelman