Albert K. Ashes-Bury Riffs on “The Boy” Again

I really don’t know if I can write this at all.
I watched hundreds of them go past today, caught a few.
They were hideous, some of them. So many beings and sounds.
It has taken some time for this to come, and watching them go
is a death—it is a visit to the pearly gates: I was in the pub.
A man offered me a drink after a bit of chit chat. It felt too strong.
Where did I come from?
One of the ones I did capture felt too powerful. I knew it at the time
and knew to stop. Heaven knows where I would have gone
or how I survived it before, the barrage dragging me.
(Right now, I must caveat, someone I can no longer help
is going past too.)
I know it is stupid to even want this here, but this is me.
I have felt this person slipping around for years. They were disgusted in me
at times—still are. We are not sure what to say to each other. We are all not sure.
I felt the boy hanging at the door even at breakfast, the love of my life
seeing me, seeing me, seeing me, seeing me, seeing me,
and it makes me feel too much too, which is a shame, but I am so excited
with what comes. That is life?
I cannot think where the boy has been. I cannot. I cannot. I will not need to—
only I know he comes.
My legs grew when I was walking back—my whole body. It is not surprising.
But then these waves! And the rain! And my tears—they still sound
too pathetic to my ears and that makes me think and think.
I am happy to forget all this noted down, despite what I am doing.
(And her. That never? Or past?)
I feel sick with my arrogance and tentative claims of greatness. Most of it
I cannot mention—I will not see it again.
What if someone reads it? Where am I taking them?
This is nothing that I wanted to write, and I have learned
that’s a godsend: I listened. I want to remember nothing, but to enjoy
the love of a being under a roof, a drink, or under covers. No thinking.
I watched—and let—hundreds go past, and my boy walked in the room
and we cried together getting home on legs I’d never known.