the valentine invitation

i'm looking for cards, now. looking at red satin boxers that teenage girls get for their boyfriends. looking forward to walking up the steps and in the door and bouncing off the dog and hugging the girl and kissing her father until i'm out of spit. until i'm sure i'm there again. back where i know i don't belong but can't quit going. back where i never thought i could be. would be. the vortex of his bed, the resurrection of our bodies, the certainty of one man, one moment stretched over so many years. and we will watch bad movies, and listen to the beatles, and drive in a strange town until they think i live there, surprised i don't know how to get to hawthorne. it will be valentine's day, not in a motel this time, a motel without hot water, with chocolate, and a single red rose from walmart, second thoughts, and such distance between us it has taken a year to cross it. there is no arrival for us, no destination i understand, but we have crossed the distance, and are togethter in the middle of something that cannot last, but has. i am invisible, a ship without a wake, moving through his life without effect. and i see the end coming for me like a shark in the shallows. i can't help but see it. it has been there all along, allowing all of this. more to feed on in the end, i suppose.