by A.M. Brant

I watch you walk down the street alone from the bus window.
I watch the back of your neck, smooth, hard lines leading to collar.
I watch you who I do not know stoop in your smallness and pick
up a fallen leaf. I watch you who I know intimately from across
a room.
/ The thing is /
I want to know all of it, all of you. Describe your most felt feeling.
Make it a color and have it creep into my living room on its belly.
I want more. I want to know more. What do you think about
when you’re alone? Why that meal? Why that paint? Why
that dress? Why that pose? What does it feel like in your bodymind?
Sweep the unspeakable toward me and I will stuff it beneath the rug
of my living room heart, a hole in the floor, we can fit them all inside,
all your secrets, all your no-words-for things you don’t ever want to see
again. I’ll pull it back and you shove.