Sharon Cumberland

The man who wants you
is never in the place
you are. He is in Brooklyn,
you are in Chicago;
he is painting houses,
you work for Microsoft;
he is into bowling and computer games;
you are into stargazing
and poetry.

The man who wants you
is never in the time
you are: he is twenty years older,
rugged, romantic, teaching
Shakespeare or biology;
you are a coed with big eyes
in the back row of desire.
Or years later, the man who wants you
sits in the front row of your classroom
raising his hand, hanging on your
every word, trailing you to your office
with a thousand eager comments;
you are old enough to be his mother,
the last crush of his childhood.

The man who wants you
missed all of his cues, never
knew you were the One
until he had a wife and a house
full of responsibilities;
with the clarity of hindsight
he tracks down your number,
calls you past midnight
to weep and imagine
your phantom marriage.
The man who wants you
is never where you are—you
with your laundry basket
and your five-year-old car.
The man who wants you
is in Tahiti or Shangri-La—
the moon, the lagoon,
the gardenia on the nightstand.

THE MAN WHO WANTS YOU

The man who wants you
is never in the place
you are. He is in Brooklyn,
you are in Chicago;
he is painting houses,
you work for Microsoft;
he is into bowling and computer games;
you are into stargazing
and poetry.

The man who wants you
is never in the time
you are: he is twenty years older,
rugged, romantic, teaching
Shakespeare or biology;
you are a coed with big eyes
in the back row of desire.
Or years later, the man who wants you
sits in the front row of your classroom
raising his hand, hanging on your
every word, trailing you to your office
with a thousand eager comments;
you are old enough to be his mother,
the last crush of his childhood.

The man who wants you
missed all of his cues, never
knew you were the One
until he had a wife and a house
full of responsibilities;
with the clarity of hindsight
he tracks down your number,
calls you past midnight
to weep and imagine
your phantom marriage.
The man who wants you
is never where you are—you
with your laundry basket
and your five-year-old car.
The man who wants you
is in Tahiti or Shangri-La—
the moon, the lagoon,
the gardenia on the nightstand.

The miracle is that anyone can love,
look eye-to-eye without turning away.
That youth exchanges urgency for order:
man with his bristling arrows, woman
with her reservoir of life. Seasons die
and revive: husband, wife,
husband, wife.

Yeshua is young himself. He wants to
stamp his feet, slap his thighs,
sing at this wedding! He wants to
look at girls whose toes have
tiny silver bands, whose veils have
little trilling bells. He wants to
flick his fingers and ring
the little bells. He wants to
braid and tangle, run, pursue–
there is no verb for all he wants to do!
He says Yes! to everything: skewered goat,
wedding bread, and to his mother
pressing him for wine.
Why should he subdue his gift within
the logos of his mind?
Yeshua gives the wedding guests the best wine ever made:
he may as well. Even though it’s not his time, the end,
he knows, is swelling on the vine.

Only the sober steward stands tansfixed
by water, deepening into scarlet,
spiraling through the amphorae. He tastes it:
By the staff of Moses! he cries.

What time destroys it cannot uncreate:
the bridegroom sits beside his happy bride,
worlds on the brink. Yeshua sings,
dances, drinks, commits: he feels as though
he’s wedded everything.

Sometimes, alone at home, I say into the air

“Bastard! Thieves!” or sometimes,

“I love you” to nobody, in order to hear

my voice, and to address the people

who ought to have been here, fighting

with me, whom I could resent for hemming

me in so that I could never have

this solitude. For not loving me enough,

or not appreciating my feelings.

“I love you” I say to the one

who did not believe me, who never came here,

that thief, who let my hair grow gray

without him, that bastard.

Ten men are dressed in orange prison suits,

their hands bound behind their backs,

ten more in black uniforms, faces

swathed in black scarves. Each man

is matched with another, orange, black

orange, black as they march

in sand along the shore of a silent sea.

The men in orange kneel, each black-

clad man standing behind with a knife.

We fear the worst and, in this universe,

the worst happens.

            But in that other place, the place

of peace, the men in black drop their knives

and throw their masks into the sand.

They unbind their brothers

and help them step out of the prison

suits. They shed forever their black

uniforms. Now twenty young men

stand nude in the bright sun.

They turn to the sparkling sea

and run into the water, each man

diving and splashing until he is cool

and refreshed. They help each other

onto the shore and into the shade,

share tea and sugar dates, discuss

their future plans: a marriage, an import-

export business, a wing on the house

for an old parent, for children.

They say: I would like to know more

about you, who are so much like me.

There are seven billion people in the world.

Every second—every millisecond—thousands die

like drops of water rushing together

over a vast falls.

But on this particular day,

the old ladies gasping on mats in the corner of huts

or in hospices and hospitals, and the old men gazing at the ceiling

from their death beds, lived to see the sun rise once again.

Pedestrians walked safely down the sidewalks of the world,

and drunk drivers plowed into snow banks or hedges

instead of people or trees. Skiers also avoided trees,

and no boys hoping for paradise wrapped themselves in dynamite

to haunt the market places of Afghanistan or Syria

or Iraq. Mothers all over the world selected apples and coconuts,

mangos and pomegranates to take home on what seemed like a normal day.

But on this particular day, the epidemiologists

had a few more hours to unravel the secrets of Ebola, HIV/AIDS,

malaria. The little boy, alone in a sterile room in Liberia

could look through the plastic window at his mother for one more day.

No one noticed this miracle—the ICU nurse simply noticed

that all of her patients seemed to rally a little, and the hospice

volunteer went from bed to bed smiling into the quiet faces

of those who waited, some with hope, others—on this particular day—

with less resentment than usual.

City morgues caught up on their backlogs

because, as sometimes happens, there were no

murders on this particular day, and no kids falling out of windows

or into ponds or out of cribs, no Dads slipping on ice

or falling off ladders stringing lightsor clearing gutters. Firemen

ate lasagna and were grateful for an uneventful day.

Far away, in those places we send soldiers

but never go to ourselves, everyone seemed

to just sit down and smoke a cigarette, or a pipe,

or a hookah, and have a cup of coffee.

They all seemed to be waiting—waiting

for something all of them wanted.

On this particular day, everyone lived.