NOTHING HAS CHANGED
by Rosmarie Waldrop
A sort of empty number
2
When did you
3
the pressure not to live in
4
Parallel open so we could
5
Latent agreement not to
6
Give back what disappears
7
The point which sustains
8
A sense of forgetting
9
Kept fightling
10
When we embrace
11
Strange light doesn't stop
12
Can't escape in the same
13
This suspicion she
14
I can't stand with
15
And this desire to tell you
16
In part however rapidly
17
It's not the same as if
18
You have to talk
19
There is as in the answer to
20
Did you know between them
21
The force you didn't directly
22
But we had what isn't and what tries
23
Makes us wait makes possible
24
You can't make this distinction
25
Always again waiting
26
Opens onto a question and doubles
27
Trying to tell
28
And why how different
29
And this indifference
30
Rather than at two removes
31
I don't remember not inside me
32
But you'd been waiting
33
You ask if I come what for
34
You have a feeling that
35
And presence
for Claude Royet Journoud
and Anne-Marie Albiach
1
relations
never more present
all you
around you
let yourself
it moves but that's my fault
yes yes you said across the words
what a funny
he didn't anywhere
that is he lived and before
he found then why with you
he seemed and he
could stand the center of
to his surprise
more than she ever
awakened a distance with
but streets and incessant
we're not
not really
would we accept
alone
to be not altogether
against one another
turn
you know there is
between attention
a place never direct
nor an object to stay near
impersonal attention you don't with
extreme
but suddenly we've been
always
movement toward presence
a secret
turns away
calmly
as if a detour in forgetting
could
waiting
nearly too present
I continue toward
what you say
finds rest and stays
you won't
not even once
watch my words refer
where breath is gathered
across what
would really be up to
the impossible
if you'd remember
doubtless
but against I know
this presence
I'll never
but even less
the force of doubt
talking approaches because
in the space of
your presence
what you have to consider:
its
not coming closer
exclusion
what makes you
it's between us
it's what
left a stranger to conviction
shaking your head you
want to say
movement you
couldn't
in that case you know
if I'm my
presence
I don't but perhaps
you
called her presence
contact with which she didn't
and never convinced of
the difference
she has her what attracts you
is between
waiting to be present
not only as it would have been
decision out of reach
and because I openly
you too lost
in waiting
I haven't yet been able to
the same motion as in the case
you knew I wanted
wouldn't you
refuse perhaps together with
as consequence
you were attracted
don't leave
it would
the first time of your
the time the lack
will it last if you
doesn't leave much of an idea of
unbearable when
unnoticeably
in question which
waiting you could in a way
perhaps already
asking carries what could be
the end of waiting
can't be asked
nothing which measure the limit
would you
while on guard
yes I think but is it still
depends on
something to keep before
throws a shadow
the moment we had
tacitly
which you should
as with this presence clear to itself
but did you not allow yourself to
if the same word makes a screen
it's up to in what
movement as if turned to see
more than this turn
and away
this lack permits to
opening an absence
the pressure of ending
without you know
even in waiting
even if it's meant to
disengage
in the end
our waiting
it's very strong and nothing hinders
because your presence in its
always I mean
dispersing always
and separating
if each time
you think you can't
the characteristic
why did you
from which is excluded
you might have
can't be adjourned in this wait
you wouldn't
by your side
yet you were there
breathing
not important
you neither
you shouldn't
but you see all the time
when you're there it's not quite
what you see once and for all
would go as far as not
answering yes to me too
I felt I couldn't
except that I don't make
distinctions
visible
which makes precise
what in you both
attraction
thought which doesn't
let ignore
what isn't thought
without forgetting more suddenly
from an impression
but there is each time
the memory
and from this difference
it too immobile
we share the forgetting
from word to
but you do
one of our difficulties
facing you however
I recalled you wanted
just help
onloy you couldn't nearly what I
perfectly a wall
which I this seriously
when at that point as you see me
trying to make more invisible
my invisible
perhaps to find
you don't know how lightly
and that adds I realize to
the unknown perception
I'm not you know different
with what I fear is not the way
a secret less than its approaching
however you are
if you weren't
the secret you can't stand that word
but to discover there's nothing
when you look
a word completely visible
and only visible
but on the contrary
open without
being open when you speak of it
because you speak of it
weighs heavily
Copyright © 1981 by Rosmarie Waldrop
Light and Dust Anthology of Poetry