Narcissus
Brian Walters
I say my friend and mean myself
The same as he says somebody
Means anyone else, like everyone’s the same
I guess, some word game or inscrutable puzzle.
I find myself saying parallax
These days and don’t know why.
I say parallax all the time. I write it secret
Love notes on the weekends
I wrap in tin-foil hearts and tape
To valentine chocolates, though I’m sure
I don’t know what parallax even means.
I dream parallax dreams and count parallax
Sheep before I go to bed each night.
They fade in and out, Lucretius says,
Like sleep on parallax hillsides.
OK—he doesn’t say exactly that,
But means it if you read between the lines,
Like, sweet parallax, I mean it too.
For you I paint the whole scene underwater
And count to ten. You know the trick
Below water’s surface sunlight bends
And I wake literally beside myself.
Or so I say, but who knows really
Who I’m next to each morning.
And that, you see, is the problem.
It’s just like that old joke: A pair a’ lax
Girls walk into a bar with a box of chocolates
Under their arms covered in tin-foil hearts
And the bartender says something
But I’m way too drunk to care.
OK—so that’s not exactly the joke.
But still it’s funny the way sex is always
Parallax masturbation. Or the way they play me
All night for drinks. And I confuse the two
For one and think they’re the same girl.
Some parallax reflection’s shadow.
I think they’re the same girl as me.