Some Reasons For The Mysterious Disappearance Poem by MARINA GIPPS

Because I watch you wake, I can never awaken.
Watching you sleep, I may never sleep.
And so sleep goes elsewhere to a place
too tedious to mention…

Because in evening I watch you dress, never dressing myself,
For in morning, you undress your shadow.

I never expected it to be this way: to invade
another’s savior brain so I could tour
yesterday, the Guggenheim of my bedroom,
the heliotropes of ceilings.

Because I watch you make atomic bombs out of Quaker
oat-boxes instead of cameras
Because the bomb is more shameful and thus more interesting;
I cannot watch you put together and take apart the octillion atoms
we need to be…

And if I watch you die, I should die too, but I go on
with sweetling childhood in my left shoe, reeking of ennui.

Because I cannot mimick you for the sake of repeating calendar days.
For in being all of this, one ceases to exist.