I’ve Moved Out

(a Golden Shovel, after Hafiz as translated by Daniel Ladinsky)

Shall I look to some mothering God
to soothe my pain and
kiss my heart-aches or shall I,
gutted by the barbs of your words, have
nothing left but my own pity, to become
cracked, passion emptied and hardened like
juevos broken with a quick two
raps and fried firm under the giant
spotlight of disapproving friends, the fat
of the fruit evaporating while people
formerly family explore a world living
apart from us as if there never was an us in
their lives, as if us was nothing but a
story, a cautionary tale told to tiny
children with enough nerve to rock the boat
too often and too hard, as if we,
two men, should have learned to keep
our love from bumping
against rigid cosmology, or shall I dive into
the ocean of men, salty touch searing each
imagined abrasion until no other
can pain again, leaving me crusted, solitary and
with eyes of a mad man laughing?

©2018 Kenneth W. Arthur