There isn’t a word for walking out of the grocery store

with a gallon jug of milk in a plastic sack

that should have been bagged in double layers

 

—so that before you are even out the door

you feel the weight of the jug dragging

the bag down, stretching the thin

 

plastic handles longer and longer

and you know it’s only a matter of time until

the bottom suddenly splits.

 

There is no single, unimpeachable word

for that vague sensation of something

moving away from you

 

as it exceeds its elastic capacity        

—which is too bad, because that is the word

I would like to use to describe standing on the street

 

chatting with an old friend

as the awareness grows in me that he is

no longer a friend, but only an acquaintance,

 

a person with whom I never made the effort—

until this moment, when as we say goodbye

I think we share a feeling of relief,  

 

a recognition that we have reached

the end of a pretense,   

though to tell the truth

 

what I already am thinking about

is my gratitude for language—

how it will stretch just so much and no farther;

 

how there are some holes it will not cover up;

how it will move, if not inside, then

around the circumference of almost anything—

 

how, over the years, it has given me

back all the hours and days, all the

plodding love and faith, all the

 

misunderstandings and secrets

I have willingly poured into it.