this will have to be enough

"I grow old ... I grow old ...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled."
—T. S. Eliot

the midden declares me, "undiscovered"
Mary Anning's lost my vertebrae in a landslide
our past is checkered with different ecologies
there is no way to temporally map this lost secret

(it is) (I am) shameful, and traducing my mother's fear
of embarrassment, I waived my desire in an
effort to free the being and do the necessary work;
it didn't happen; her feeling's still mattered to me

the wife the lover the old friend the redhead the young girl
the wife the lawyer's wife the true love all these women
I have failed just as I failed my mother and I wonder
have I failed the very Lady on this great fiery wheel?

the anamoly of this is time's crescent wrench
caught in the gears of confusion's desires; can She
give me what I don't seem to be able to give myself,
the reason for my honor— the bud of a life continued?

I've choked out the anaesthetic, true, and
now I've watched the women going and coming
and very soon the coffee will be gone there will only
be a note, recalling this time, giving it voice