you just are never happy
you never admit to happy
you never choose happy
you are in love with your sorrow
your sorrow you say is clean
it's as filthy as a lie
even a snail is happy
sometimes
maybe always
a snail in its round happy house
even if you knew our friend h you would not be happy
for her tattoo
her tattoo the chinese character for tiger
if you had a beautiful spoonrest made of creamy ceramic
and little blue fruits
sitting on your stove you would not like it
i don't know what kind of person this can be
lorca’s dibujos make you happy
momentarily
inappropriately happy
you can like them because they are not yours
why don't you make your own dibujos
that’s what you’re really lusting after
but you will not do it
because it might make you happy
if you had a shetland pony on a daisy chain
you would find something to be sad about
even though the pony would be happy for the breaking of the chain
and walking along next to you of her own free will
if you washed your feet in a crystal cold canal
on a boiling hot day
on a mountainside in spain
and washed off all the dust red dust
i don't know if you'd be satisfied
or if you'd admit it
the blue the white of the water
the mountain town
the cobalt dome
the white white whitewash
the restaurant with the christ child in a pith helmet
the cat with the bent tail on the roof garden
the little cat who was happy in spite of her bent tail
many have thought it would take this to make you happy
or that
some have tried for years to get you to see it
or admit it
now in sorrow i see you're in love with your sorrow
even when sorrow rejects you and fate conspires
to make you happy
the great miró traded paintings for hats
near the green green river
because hats made him happy
near the green grey olive groves
and because his painting made the hatmaker happy
would picking almonds make you happy
as it made us very happy on the hillside
in guejar sierra
p's long smooth hand full of little almond fruits
talking and taking photographs with p and a
i don't think so
or at least you’d never admit it
you want us to admire your sorrow
to say your sorrow suits you
but sorrow suits no one no one
and the alhambra tiles and carvings
the salamanders and pools of the generalife
the fountain of the lions who look like tame dogs
half-tame cats climbing up up up to the top of the fountains to drink
the glazed ripe cherries
the small greenorange fruits
i have never even heard you exclaim over flowers
how is this possible
what about bee-balm
what about morning glories
roses like cabbage-heads big as our own
but i wonder if again i'm being too hard
if something has absconded with your happiness
even if you invited that something in perhaps you're not to blame
i don't want to be blaming the victim
or do i
the happiness (duende) happiness (passion) happiness (flowers)
of the baby-faced flamenco cantador
will never be yours
the chances of your sitting on top of one mountain and hearing the far-off goat bells
from another mountain
are slim
and you may never see the tiny trails of far-off goats as they trickle
in no formation whatsoever
down the face of the grey-green mountain
goats walking helter-skelter in a catlike way
when we rested during our walks through the alhambra i met a stray dog
a gentle little stray who was way too thin
who had sad yellow eyes
and he came to my hand
so gently
he sniffed my hand
i thought oh no he's hungry and offered him my cookie
the last of my cookie
a cookie i'd greatly enjoyed
and out of politeness or pity or simple good will he took it in his mouth
so gently
as if it were a communion wafer
i could feel his enormous gratitude
and something something else
the complications between us in that dry spanish air were enormous
i was not sure if it was his hunger or something something else
then he laid that cookie on the ground
with a sad and piercing carefulness
as if he couldn't bear to be happy
