Dark Matter by Jonathan Wonham

after I Wanted to Tell You by Amanda Deutch.

So I felt yes and no
not Thursday morning
but maybe the feel of uncertainty
and certainly the yes of phrases
when I spoke them to you
but not in front of you
or in front of your empty bottles.

And yes to the sea but no
to an expression and not yet
to whatever I had never seen in anyone.

And yes to you too
and not a blank yes or
a reproduction yes
but a resounding yes all my own.

To all this I can at a certain hour
having made myself known to myself
through no voice but my own
say yes.

But now I stay wary somewhere
between tender and undressed
indicating the motion of light
and what we do and do not know
about the shape of the cosmos
on a morning like this one.

Because yes becomes no afternoon
and no afternoon lasts well
into no night, with no particular emerging
from our bones in sight.

The no that had been wanting to know
for weeks. The no words
that could wipe things out
and not replace them.

The yes we could have said
and not continued to.
The no which could have meant being.

So I felt yes and no
not Thursday morning.
I am busy.