Professor Martel’s Startling Conclusion (7 of 10)

S E V E N


The breath of laughter
enthuses not only life but also

the leaving of life and the weave
woven through both: The thread love.

*

The love of my life.
A young lady. An administrator

at the party school. Two years a friend,
then chance turned a chance talk

to talk of music. Rock and roll.
And consequently to death.

Love of Who music
led hundreds of Who fans at a concert

to rush to the music – a rush
trampling eleven Who fans.

“I heard about a tee shirt,”
the love of my life said, grinning.

My life’s love quoted: “I’d walk
all over you to see the Who.”

She giggled, laughed quietly,
then laughed louder and slapped her leg.

What life! A perfectly vital
appreciation of death!

A perfectly weird appreciation
of weird death that took

away my heart as long laughter
takes breath. This laughing woman

took me, breathless, and breathed on me.
Breathless herself, she lay back

to my own breathing. Life, laughter, love.
A third sense, then, this love.

Time. Humor. Love. Each something,
somehow, somewhere. Time. Humor. Love.

A momentary touch. A smile.
The moment and touch lengthen.

Love, then. A flux of the three.
Time, then. Flexible breath! Laughter.

Flexible breath, indeed,
bent over me, mine, then another.

I breath, I walk. She, breathing, walked.
All over. Me. We both saw.

I suppose you could say we both came
and we both conquered, too.

But then we both left, too.
I, for work, she, for a mechanic

who bought her a house off-campus.
A repeating thing, this love,

like time and humor.
Time repeating me. Time, repeating jokes:

“I guess that mechanic
really knew how to use his tools . . .” Breath!

Time. Humor. Love. I sat back
with these three. And thinking. And breath.

And expression. And, gradually,
I realized I sat

not alone! My self,
in the middle of time, humor and love

moved in the middle
of these repeating things, itself a thing

repeated. My self! Not a sense,
but something, somehow, somewhere.