Out of this World

Like a spelling mistake
on a postcard from
a possible lover, like
the Algerian quarter
in a town where the muezzin’s
cry has never been heard,
is this suddenness,
my watch put forward
an hour we still hide
ourselves in and consume.

The sensation of tracing
two coiled melodies
at once lies heavy
on my tongue, testing
itself against and splitting
the atom of my name:
like the rules of the games
children play
by the lake shore,
impenetrable to me

and yet I watch; I follow
and cheer. It is something
to do with the weight
of your feet in my hand,
a journey not taken,
your flimsy slip-ons
abandoned and sinking
into the wet mountain clay.
Whistle to me Coltrane’s
‘Out of this World’

while I carry you home.
But there is no whistling
that tune. It is like
nothing on earth,
or not even that.
Like is not like: putting
itself to sleep, my tongue
foreswears my similes
and all their gluey works.
Do not take my hand,

language, my sweetest
downfall, now nothing
remembers its name.
Kick my hand away
and stride out into the water
while there’s a moon
to scoop up and save.
That too carry home. Be
to me like nothing on earth
or be nothing at all.