2000/intimacy

Intimacy sucks.
He keeps a certain distance
from everyone,
so they only tell him
the pleasant things.
The civil.
I get all the latest
on surgeries,
the psychological dramas
syndicated to run over
and over.

Even his own mother
saves the heavy sighs for me.
I stopped calling.
I stopped asking.
Finally, I stopped talking
to people altogether.
Except for a friendly chat in public,
something I can back away from
when they reach for their scars.
I didn’t mind the first forty years,
it’s just lately grown tedious –
teejus as a guy I used to know
always said.

3/17/00