Roots
By Roger Soffer

I can’t tell whether I should succumb or not,
or to what, or if I already have.

I’ve grown horribly bored with myself.

Your hair seems wispy this evening.
When I move to touch it,
you lean back and my hand moves through
the still air like a ghost.

I would be rescued.
I would be given a task of value.
I would feel the bark of a smooth tree under my fingers.

You are cooking with your back to me.
Smoke from the iron pan rises in front of you.
I used to have words, but tonight
I am less intimate than a neighbor.

How can there be confession without self-pity?
Other than, I’ve forgotten the feel of your skin.

I have been eaten by my own undertow.

It must be the relentless sun pushing against my cells,
or the heat of a palm, and your hands, equally hot
in their icy cold, pressing or withdrawn.

Once you tried to hit me, but we have moved on.

I remember gentleness, but we have both succumbed,
and as the kitchen lightbulb sputters,
we have become two trees, trees with twisting roots,
heavy in the ground, and winter, and time.

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