Beside the Point

The problem with standing, walking, or talking with you
is that it snows in April, and the subways never run on time

like they used to. It is that our object—the poem—
conducts not love but its articulable performance

and although you’ve taken to carrying a thermos of coffee
although we’ve banished the concept of the Anthropocene

I never close the circuit of our reference
perhaps allowing modernism to persist

too long. I don’t know what this surface might tell me
or how to sleep, remember dreams, etc. Our activity

swoons ambiently, postulating first this
and then that. When I point it out, you agree.

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