Two Eclipses

 

1. Lunar, 11:41 p.m. 

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Don’t I always see you this way,

the color I leave behind?

Your absence, amber.

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You are my darkness now.

I hang in your sky,

a luminous perimeter.

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I hover a moment:

in front of the sun,

I am your moon.

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2. Solar, 1:27 p.m. 

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You are my moon, 

in front of the sun.

You hover a moment,

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a luminous perimeter.

You hang in my sky.

I am your darkness now—

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my absence amber,

the color you leave behind.

Do you always see me this way?

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Transference​

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We talked about transference at school, 

I begin the session telling you, leaning back

on your therapy couch.

Transference and counter-

transference. The professor didn’t talk about reactions:

alchemy, combustion, reactions between you

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and me, the us of things. But apparently, your

feelings about me are actually about someone else. School

says that I dress you up as other people too, react

to them, not you. Like I'm back

in my childhood, my mother at the kitchen counter,

me on my sick-day couch,

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plotting how to stay on that couch,

home from school, tended by my mother’s soup, how do you

feel? To which I'd say, not better yet. I could count

on one hand the number of times she laughed with me. School

says it's my mother I'm really mad at, every time you don't laugh back

when I make a joke. As if there's no reaction,

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as if water only boils because it remembers other fire. You're reacting

to me on your couch,

me telling you we react to each other. You lean back,

pick up your mug. Stare at me, let me talk. You

know how I feel about school.

Usually you do laugh as I tell you how I counter

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everything the professor said. Don't even get me started on counter-

transference, I tell you. Why is it a different word when you do it, when you react

to me like I'm someone else?  You school

me, the therapy couch

under me. Because this is about you, you

counter. My feelings here are the reaction back

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to yours. A reaction back. A reaction between?  I'm backing

into the cushion. Are we together, or apart? You're not laughing. Is this counter-

transference? Fine, I guess I only transference-love you, and you

only counter-love me. No reaction

between us, no alchemy, no combustion, you in that chair, me on this couch.

Just like they told me at school.

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I want to lie down on my sick-day couch, my reaction 

when my mother wouldn't laugh back. Not better yet. Could you 

tend to me – counter-want to – on this couch, after school?

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