Perpendicular

I suppose the decent thing

would have been to look away

avert my eyes in a gesture, at least,

of preserving your    dignity.

But I did not.

Not that there was

     curiosity

some morbid sense of

fascination,

anything that felt like

     interest

at all.  I was simply seeing you

prone and vulnerable

on the

bed.

We were simply       perpendicular.

That was all.        

     I

upright

  with

  arms

full of

laundry

pausing

to ask

a simple

question

You, with that peculiar flatness

wrong in a way that can’t be named but that

animals and children would sense.

My mouth

of its own accord

carried on with the words

of ordinary dayness

While my eyes,

(had you been able to turn your head you would have seen it)

Saw you,

                unblinking and steady (my eyes that is) leveled on you across the room

(and now I

recall,

yours too,

yes,

equally steady,

fixed on

the ceiling,

directly

ahead

while

answering

my

simple

question)

While I stood there,  a bit too open…my eyes, I mean…not you…but maybe that too.

Yes, maybe that too.

Laura Young, 2006