Eye Contact
From
Brenda Is in the Room and Other Poems, copyright 2007 by Craig Morgan Teicher. Used by permission of the Center for Literary Publishing.
1
As if bees are known for their pride.
But what's so great about horses? They're stuck
on the earth except when they jump,
but even then they're not bees.
But is there anything we value so highly
as streetlights, which, unlike bees,
watch over us with their swan-like
necks and open their eyes at the right time
every night? The answer is lonely
and whoever among us is brave enough
to find it will come home to a family
that won't even look us in the eyes.
2
But what's so great about eye contact?
As if a horse knows a newspaper
when he sees it. Streetlights don't live
in hives; they're not more afraid
of us than we are, fortified by stingers and swarms.
Bees don't brighten the alleyways
in which we commit our most heinous crimes
to keep things moving and fill
the papers with news. Why don't we have
a holiday to recognize the alleyways?
The answer is lonely and whoever
among us is brave will have nowhere to jump.
3
Why don't we sing a song that makes
the bees proud? What's so great
about desolate meadows? The answer
is lonely. Why don't we come home
and look at our family? Why don't we
designate an hour to brag about news?
What's so great about the way the papers
blow through alleyways in the evening
like deflated rats? As if pride could
brighten the meadows at night. Whoever
among us is brave enough to forgive
a family gets to make eyes with a lonely horse.
4
As if the answer is flowers. As if
we could gather streetlights
in a bouquet from the alleyways
and brighten family after
beekeeping family. But what's so
great about seeing the truth?
Beneath every meadow is the Earth's
molten core, red and hot as an evil eye.
Why don't we blow through the streets
at night? The answer is lonely, even
if a horse knows the way home.
What's so great about being brave?