ACROSS A CAFE TABLE  [1965]

  by Dick Bakken

“—maybe this isn’t the time or place—”

    you go on twisting a glowing cigarette
    vertically between your fingers, wet eyes
    fixed on the jerky, turning red coal

“—I don’t know how to say it—”

    you wince again finally glancing to me
    and wrenching from my gaze

“—but I’m not dependable, and I—”

    I nearly smile, seeing you
    as panicked for your balance
    as six years back, on the golden seat
    in our old meadow, a nymph wisp quaking
    some other confession

“—don’t want to hurt you. I run from this.
I run. People get close to me, and I hurt them.
That’s why I’ve seemed such a witch all evening,
to show what I am—”

    you vivid little wing of bliss, I love
    what you are. You can never fly
    from that, even if you burst up from me

“—so I can’t—”

    can’t bless me Sunday, your birthday,
    because dear friends are doing a glory party?
    Do you dream flight so easy the
    up side of twenty-one?

“—you don’t ‘understand—”

    when I ask Sunday again.
    See my heart then. Witness how my moment
    and span are yours. See this prayer . . .

    as I walk beneath
    your loved bleak skies.