This Angle

 

After rejecting the opinion of friends,

acquaintances and magazine articles

that I have a problem with intimacy,

I have discovered that I do have a problem with intimacy:

 

I am surrounded by reality

but I don’t seem real,

like a faithless angel

asking questions without knowing

what to do with the answers.

 

(I study the mirror

to see what they might see,

and there is life in my eyes,

like maybe alive and not living—

 

maybe alive as if death

will be an easy transition,

broken down and re-applied

to everything unaware of the me.

 

This lack of intimacy is unnerving

but acceptable but for remembering time

when I have focused

and come into focus,

when, for example,

I was in love

and there was something there

to burn.)

 

 

 

 

Mat Favre attended Truman State University and graduated in 1995 with a B.A. in English, later taking the MA in Literature from Northern Michigan University. He currently teaches composition at Portland, OR area community colleges, and waits tables to pay the bills.