STRANGE NON-ENCOUNTER
I wonder if
not having a wife
(or a child)
I can be called
human
since it is not only
not having a wife
(or a child)
but I find the idea
of a wife and a child
or a woman at all
or another man,
my double, my
doppelganger
- simply the idea
of being a couple,
of having been one
becoming two,
or three or four or five,
incomprehensible -
incomprehensibly wonderful
perhaps, but
incomprehensible.
And so I sit here, fabricating
schemes for the betterment
of humanity, knowing
that humanity
is ever - in one
important respect at least -
other than me,
pretending perhaps
that it is God I love
which I do, perhaps,
but not any more
than anyone else,
nor can I pretend
that God and I
are a couple -
two ones that have become
one two -
or even one One
with many millions
in communion -
but I am no saint,
I for whom the other,
the one that I love,
is a flat surface
coming alive
in a layer of paint.