Transparent

“I dream of an art so transparent you can look through it and see the world”
-Stanley Kunitz

She tells me I should have been a doctor,
the way I keep talking about the body.

I try to tell her I don’t know anything of science,
I tried and failed when I was a much younger woman
and put my heart elsewhere.

I know nothing of the chemistry,
the way the creatures that live far below
the ocean, past light, know only darkness and
nothing of us.

She tells me the one about breast cancer,
that one, she says, opening and closing her mouth.
I nod and make an effort not to look at her breasts.

I’ve thought those things, she tells me.
I’ve thought those exact things. Those words.

It’s a window, I tell her. Nothing more.
I’m just on this side, my mouth pressed against
the glass, yelling to you
and you are on the other side, your ear there,
waiting for
the sound and the heat
to come through in quivering waves
first an echoing hum and
then something feverish.