my favorite poem.

The Narrows by Jim Carroll

That is the way you are, always given
to silence. so I don’t care anymore
about these green leaves in my carpet
about the death of an historical figure
about your voice.

you were thinking about a red curtain
that we might hide behind. I was
thinking about the freedom of your shadow,
last night, when this livid sky unfolded
its vault of a thousand swords and the air
we were breathing seemed our own.

I’m glad that you’re able to breathe
I’m glad that you’re able to distinguish me
from the lights along the thruway.
I mean don’t both of us illuminate
the direction which you are taking?
and don’t both weep nervously above
the moist pavement where you move.

I’d like to watch myself holding you
above the cool shore of something really vast
like a vast sea, or ocean.
and when I was through watching
I’d become someone else, seducing the heavy
waters, allowing nothing to change.
as the sands are changing and night comes
and we’re not aware of all this endlessness,
which is springing up like The Moonlight Sonata
ascending from the glare of a thousand frightened moans.