An Easier Way

i pace the spacious void
where you last left me while
thinking of an easier way to reach you,
faster than the electronic interference
of fax email voice-mail pager or a plain phone

i stand envious of the others' powers
to will encounters by chance
to happen

& then you arrive,
seemingly heedful of these unvoiced cries,
my feeble decrees released before
the forgiving encroachment of sleep.

there you are--yellow shirted, denim jeaned,
teeth buffed white, a panther coiled
in your chest, your eyes glinting
their familiar shards of cold controlled
fury that raises self-protective nettles
around this heart.

i imagine you, stony sojourner, tipping
icebergs, flooding deserts, tripping over volcanoes
to reach the unexciting din of this shopping mall

you arrive unfazed, unscathed, protected by a phalanx
of reined-in feelings
& stonewalled outbursts.

i hold you down with
a gaze that reads:

the night's shortness
challenges us.

--Babeth Lolarga

first published in another version in Mirror Weekly, Nov. 30, 1998
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