I Lose the Gloves My Mother Knits

for Florene

I am the fellow
going outside for my sanity

foolish
this sentiment

my invention
dancing to your heart

under the lamps and snow
at the end of the street

no song playing

I am all
heavy hands

*

I write
to lock you in my arms
before I throw away the key

I forget what happens to me

I am the foolish boy
leaving hand-knit gloves
on the taxi seat

*

get me wrong or get me right

nothing changes in these days of night

*

yet I want you
here under these city lights
and quiet snow fall
if only for happiness in magic
the two of us, one morning
finding mushrooms in the pine

February 5 1996