When the neighbor’s drapes are open,                                     Revised 1/13/10

I’m not like the kind of man

who refuses to put down his binoculars

so that their steamy, good time

can remain his as well. No,

I’m exactly that kind of man,

  wary of anyone who’d turn away

  mid-view, skedaddle off to a room

that overlooks, say, a pond.

I’m so tired of superior smiles.

Something I’m unaware of is likely

governing me, which doesn’t excuse

these dark, bottom-feeding things

I tend to let rise into daylight.

I’ll take discredit for all of them.

Nevertheless I wish to be true to life,

though not entirely to the one I live.

When in trouble I’ve been known

to give myself some wiggle room,

to revisit that once important sliver

of moon that slid across the Bay

to our table back when we were in love,

to even change our names. In the world

of feelings, aren’t attractive opposites

always nearby? — dogwood blossoms,

for example, and the springtime puffery

of rhododendrons trumping the memory,

at least for a moment, of that heat

my binoculars brought close.

Life itself is promiscuous. It feels right

to place a few renegade details together,

  let them cavort. A moment later,

  it feels right to discipline them,

  smack them into shape — the pink cadillac

that motored by while I was eating macaroni

and cheese, the meteor that fell

at a terrible speed and dissolved into darkness,

  that apology on the tip of my tongue.