from Out of the Works No Good Comes From

                           Incantation

The television
lights the room,
a continual presence.
Seconds minutes
flicker in gray intervals
on the wall beside my head.
Even if
I could walk to the window
I would only see
gray video images
bending against the clouds.

At one time
more might have been necessary--
a smoky quartz crystal
balanced in the center of the palm.
But tonight
there is enough.

The simple equation you found
in my notebook
frightened you.
But I could have explained it:
       After all bright colors of sunset and leaf
       are added together
       lovers are subtracted
       children multiplied, divided, taken away.
The remainder is small enough
to stay in this room forever
gray-shadowing restless
trapped on a gray glass plain.

I did not plan to tell you.
Better to lose colors gradually
first the blue of the eyes
then the red of the blood
its salt taste fading
water gone suddenly bitter
when the last  yellow light
blinks off the screen.

Wherever you're heading tonight
you think you're leaving me
       and the equation of this gray room.
Hold her close
       pray
               these are the lies I'm telling you.
As with the set which lost its color
and only hums gray outlines
it is a matter of intensity and hue
and the increasing distance--
the interval will grow as imperceptibly
as it grew between us.

You'll drive on
putting distance and time between us
        the snow in the high Sierras
        the dawn along the Pacific
dreaming you've left this narrow room.

But tonight
I have traced all escape routes
with my finger across the TV weather map.
        Your ocean dawn is only the gray light
                 in the corner of this room.
        Your mountain snowstorm
                flies against the glass screen
                until we both are buried.

                                                         --Leslie Marmon Silko