After Awhile

for Haumea

And wasn't the wind     wet like April,
late April -- rain blown from the bell
of a blue clarinet.

And Her hair!  The dark
guitar of it     and later, the long legs
of sunlight uncrossed,

but unseen.  Such instruments!

So many mad edges made into music:

Her arms open     like a storm.
If I didn't want so much
so much, why would i ever

say anything?  My heart takes cover
on two wheels: Her slow walk slow enough

to see by.  My mouth harps
and harps, but what

language     is this:  dumb notes
in a dumb key.  I flame
and I fizzle.


Why am I so sickly and tame?
Even now, Her hips play the world.
Bring my voice!  I should praise.

like a sax.  I should stage
the essential noise --

as if any minute I could die
and the days would forget me.

And won't they?
Isn't it just     a matter of time
till somebody stutters S-
S-Seibles     is dead.

I'm already dead.

My life looks for itself in the windows.

And what will I do after awhile?
10,000 years with all these
almost-words still tied in my throat.

Her hair.  The strum-drunken tongue of my heart.
Always Her eyes: always
so undarkably dark.

(c)Tim Seibles              2004

from Buffalo Head Solos

Cleveland State University Poetry Center

Cleveland, OH