Poem

You are going to come into my venerable life
And tell me that you love me.

You won’t care what I’ve built.

You will say, "Sandra, your shadow
is shaped like a daschund."

Huh?

You will pretend that the center of my body
Is an empty gymnasium

Like this is middle school
And you were the last one picked
To play on the team

Because you were not
Very strong and wore glasses.

When I think about the past, the only
Thing I remember

Is the history of my body and even that’s
getting fuzzy.

(For example, I remember that I was always happiest
Plump and alone.)

But this is what people do—they walk into you—

Just as they walk into you on the street
Because they are looking
At someone else

And sure, they’ll tell you they’re sorry,
But that’s the extent of it.

I think that all of my poems are going
To tell the future
Of all of your poems

Thereby conjoining
that future with an emptiness

so clairvoyant
That it keeps reversing
Its position

in midair
like pure data

And that is why we
Will remain enemies forever.