Waiting, by William Kistler

It is hidden, it is like a stage left alone

after faces have gone. Words scatter

on the floor, and in the mirror shadows

of a voice, edges of a gesture. Charged.

Dense. And we shift inward toward dream.

It is the hour when my hand first thought

to trace the cords of your neck and you

first took that thought into your heart.

Now I am bound to the forks which have gone

into your mouth, the spoons without effort

which fed your lips. What waiting. What walls

of hidden sentience. And you came over, drew

up a chair, sat down, waited, and I waited,

in this calm like the evenness of water

and in this extended hall of longing

which opens now without hours, a night

filled too entirely out to speak of itself.

From “Poems of the Known World,” by William Kistler. (Arcade: $14.95; 92 pp.) 1995 Reprinted by permission.