Are You Hungry? A Poem For Departure Poem by Warren Falcon

for Karthik, departing

Who has twisted us like this, so that -
no matter what we do - we have the bearing
of a man going away...so we live,
forever saying farewell. - Rainer Maria Rilke

*

out of hearing -
the last sense
to go -

sing to me now
before ears take
leave and I shall
have no more
need for words
for sounds even
these my sighs
heaving as I hear
you drop the
soap in the bath

I imagine you
bending vague
in the steam to
find the bar by
scent as you
wash away your
own which has
so compelled me
again and again
(so gladly heave
the little deaths)

*

Cleave to this
I say aloud
though you may
not hear my plea
in there from where
I sit bent doubly
over multiplied
with grief for you're
leaving all this
perfumed presence
for a village old
of dust and dung

*

I am caught up in this
vision without glasses
squinting for what is
real or not though you
are faced to mine as I
obediently move my
shaking hand to your
belly the scar there
edges still hot
to the touch

*

Much there is I will
make of this moment,
drying your back as I
have daily done -

once
began the rite
first night

gathering now
the last

o when
the towel easily un-
folds drinks

woven
little mouths many

deeply
into what
has become
natural in me
with the wiping

In this
I am become
free now of
thinking intent
to this my task
to last this minute
or two

to linger

each is
become a touch
this one

and this

*

I am right now
to speak of this,
retrieving the soap
which clings one
strand your hair
tangled there,
a cypher I read
with joy grown
long into cleaner
disorder

A leaf upon the
bathroom floor
blown in through
the night window
random now
for discovery
is a gift I bring
to you calling
to me from
the bedroom
as you pack
fumbled upon
the unmade
bed,

Are you hungry?