11/03

Caroline

We’re not even speaking the same language,
she laughs, and our friend looks from one
of us to the other, with our brown hair
and eyes, our glasses and bandannas, when
we stand together she is only barely taller,
cradling tea in an oversized mug, not even
feeling the heat, the violin calluses
are so thick. Her smile is regularly brilliant.

As roommates we are a sideways sort of perfect –
we are coming towards each other from distances
too great to comprehend; in my grief I am fierce
and she is silent; and when I am alone
I feel lost. She has days when she sees no one.
For her being alone is best; she reminds me
of who Cris might have been had she been sane.

When I try to explain why it’s best to love
(even when it leads to sadness), Caroline does little
but stare at me in pure confusion. The whole thing
makes me tired; I cannot see how she can bear
to be so distant from life and all the people in it.

Yet save for the first she is my favorite roommate,
even as we blink in baffled, mild horror
at the other one’s belief and being.
It’s like we’re speaking different languages,
I say, and she smiles to hear her words slipping
from my mouth. And maybe we are not
so different from each other after all.