The Dozens

Nothing says that you must see me in the street
with us so close together at that red light
a blind man would have smelled his grocer—
and nothing says that you must say hello
as we pass in the street,
but we have known each other
too well in the dark
for this
and it hurts me when you do not speak.

But no one you were with was quite so fine
that I won’t remember it and
suffer you in turn and
in my own fashion which is certainly
not in the street.
For I can count on my telephone
ringing some evening and you
exploding into my room through the receiver
kissing and licking my ear…

I hope you will learn your thing
at least
from some of those spiteful noseless
people who surround you
before the centipede
runs out of worlds
one for each foot.