HALFWAY THERE POEM


i searched again/ half-remembering for what/ half-searching for what i half-remembered/ not knowing if i half-knew where i was/ or if that other part of remembrance/ that is not half-forgotten/ can be half-remembered too/ i know little more/ than the little i have known all along/ that whatever i search for/ will only be half-known too/ a lifespan was spent on this/ strutting a rubber chest/ being half-tickled by half-loving fingers/ half sent to sleep by touches half sleep inducing/ most often a face behind the touch/ and a mouth/ opening, spitting and gargling/ in bathrooms long since darkened/ celebratory gestures then perhaps/ performed by a group of dismembered beings/ proud stubs performing tricks/ maybe not for want of pennies/ but more so for being more than half-remembered/ most often some parting favors in the halls/ phantom limbs to hold and hit/ phantom shouts and phantom spit/

halves of halves/ and phantoms lacking phantom grace/

a room then, later/ half-different or entirely forgotten/ with someone/ who out of respect for a semi-conducted itinerary/ sits half-arranged by a desk/ half-reading or at least half-pretending to/ in a book no more than half-important/ when something looking fully remembered/ erupts and runs the crest of a wave of an incoming frown/ mustering a look of surprise on cue/ until the curtains fall over half of a half-invented mind/ heckled he thinks/ by trained monkeys half left behind/