ALL LOVE IS LITTLE LOST

by John (Jack) Clarke

More than not being absent is the absent,
but why should the other bear the burden
alone? Are we so afraid of the truant officer
that we don’t even imagine such a thing for
ourselves, taking our persistent presence so for granted?
How should I go as far from my mother as she
from me, that we may meet again in another
orbit equidistant from the central velleity?
She recedes as I fall more and more into
the world she never entered, never hunted
for me so made sure it never existed, stood
at the door, the guardian of this side, hard
as nails against the psychosis of substitution,
the false absence that brings death to bear you

finished end
of September ‘86