Comfort

By: Valerie Hall

I keep in the stead of your eyes and hand’s intensity
A meager consolation: that in living I am speaking to
Your body across many spaced walls and peopled obstacles,
That every murmur to cobwebs, every gesture, every grin
Are syllables of our language, and that my absence of
Absence is proof of you.

I remember that one day you will
Journey toward me, and we will have nothing to say over
The Formica table and under cameras – the place
Where we really are not, where your legs and my soul do not
Have room to be restless.

And there is the greasy warm
Payphone, where your voice comes quietly, and you are
Distantly disappointed: an ersatz comfort, true, but one
Which makes my fantasies of touching you more deeply
A step towards simple.