Adam Burbage

I Can Hardly Wait

I know. I can hardly wait. The minutes are
dripping by like raindrops on the window pane
(of which there are many) though the sun
has come through in the last few minutes
    thorough & contagious
    like the thin molecules
    of phlegm on your breath
spreading your germs with a demure shake of
the head, the amputated longing that is the
road stretching out before you this Friday
    afternoon, beatific, we
    yearn for the long after-
    noon. Of morning we
are wasteful, and I dread the crude night, the
afterthought of form, the blank irregularity
of freedom, the seasons are a promise, like
dinner, or a drink, spurned ungraciously in
    pursuit of a chemist
    the glassy taillight
    sheen on the road
tramping the muggy closing of the world
waiting for an upturn in fortunes, hoping
desperately to have disturbed the surface.

(Note: This poem is part of a longer sequence, conceived as a kind of poetic
diary. This is the entry for 6th October, 2006. More poems in the
sequence can be found at Great works and Stride.)