I wanted to write you a love poem

By Nick Twemlow
By the time I started writing,
I had just come in
From the back patio,
Where I had seen
The moon's reflection
In the water feature. I laughed
To myself, wondered
How the water caught
The moon, which seemed 
Pitched at too queer
An angle. & what
Was being featured?
I once wrote,
"Nothing is too anything,"
I'm thinking tonight that
I'm right.
But I'm not sad.
Just saddened. I
Breathe. I circulate.
My body would like to tell you
How much it can't 
Stand to tell you
What it wants to tell you.
Here's a sample: Teeth. Stomach.
Skin. Application.
Yard. Wood trim.
Gutters. Teeth.
Teeth stomach teeth.
I spend all of my time
Creating novel ways
To distract myself
From the need to
Distract myself.
One minute goes like this:
You don't want to know.
That's the hardest part,
Conveying how just being
Just feels.
My latest concern
Is our son. Seeing him
Alone
Pinned against
The wall at Willowwind
By some apparitional collector
Of lost souls, the kid who
Was the first to locate an
Afterlife for Sacha. It sounded,
From his lips,
Like melodrama. We all see
Some kind of light & we
Tunnel toward it & how did this
Even happen? I wept
Later that night.
I know it's just a moment among
The millions, & there is
James & he is always
Thinking about.
Stereo-death, little Telemachus,
Defending a ghost most
Of his life, his mother
Obsessed with
Subtle refractions of light. 
(She's a Rayist at heart).
I'm not saying you're
Unraveling a weave
Every night. I think
That's what I do
These evenings, 
Typing pixels
Unto oblivion.
Sitting Lotus
On a massive lily pad
On a pond
Somewhere in fifth century 
China.
Dentist. Acid reflux. Dentist.
Stillpoint . . .
I hold the chakra
Position as long
As possible.
I imagine
All my obsessions
Abstracting into a color,
Sometimes
A version of blue,
Sometimes
I can't work it out,
I have such
An impoverished 
Color palette
To work with, so I get
Caught up
In this, my inability to see
Color in any interesting way,
& then
The whole thing falls
Apart & I am back
In here, where
The walls are pink
& the pixels
Laugh like dropsied clowns.
Some kind of plague
Takes hold.
Some kind of plague riots
In the grid I can't keep 
Track my teeth need immediate
Attention do I look fat
In this shirt where
Is my focus? Stillpoint. Hellish
Laughter rings through my ears
Teeth, teeth, migraine,
A reprieve, I can
Go to sleep
For a moment once I
Stomach dentist root canal
Like the worst kind of comedy
You expect to laugh
But the laugh
Never comes.
As it were, the moon
Did that, this glint
Stomach still point do you
& will I ever be
More than the sum
Of my regressions
Which compile
Like maggots 
Of data
Eating through
A server in Reston, Virginia
Where teeth annul &
Stomachs inhere
& I think I am inventing 
In ultimate
Infinity
A category of 
Sadness
As I punch
These keys
& I hope you have
A really
Wonderful reading

Copyright Credit:
Nick Twemlow, "I wanted to write you a love poem" from Attributed to the Harrow Painter.  Copyright © 2017 by Nick Twemlow.  Reprinted by permission of University of Iowa Press.
 
Source: Attributed to the Harrow Painter (2017)