i don’t remember what it was i said
when we were both lying naked in bed
but i do remember when he replied,
a little dream inside me died.
“you’re not understanding me,”
and i thought even then how it would be
pointless to ask him to explain
since we’d never see each other again
and i suppose he also knew
because he did not continue.

it’s quite a sophisticated place
now we’ve got satellites in outer space
to help us communicate, supposedly
but he was lying right next to me
and i thought, we’ve cured the black plague and polio
yet our fancy new problems didn’t exist years ago.
now we live lives with less destiny
than any past lives imagined theirs to be
we are a collection of dead ends
we are greater masters of pretend
than ancient civilizations who worshiped the sun,
we’ve deluded ourselves consciously; for fun.

these old minds trapped in new circumstances
we’re making missteps in these dances
as we watch our reality flickr on machines
(just who’s being protected by those “screens”?)
and it always seems more exceptional than it is
when you’re watching someone else’s.
i keep wanting to steal from my memory
of whom i’d imagined him to be—
like some mythical creature you could catch and eat,
and through you its spirit would repeat—
these attributes i long to possess
this mysteriously undaunted curiousness.
this unattainable zen detachment
of a man without doubt that his life’s been well spent
but no matter how many frogs you kiss,
you don’t get a transfusion from no prince.

but keep kissing them anyway,
half to keep hopelessness at bay
and the other half’s that dream that maybe still
some secret night, in a swank hotel
where gentle beach breezes caress your nape
and there’s nothing so bad about an escape,
whatever you were hoping you could steal
whatever you were hoping you could feel
might, even for a moment, have been real.