The High Priestess

When he was a child he was always waiting.
Sometimes he knew what he was waiting for.
& sometimes not.
He could recognize the most basic thing
As a source of anxiety, like a door
On Halloween,
A Christmas present, a thank you letter,
Unopened, unwritten, just waiting there
Like him, the knot
In the diagram in the manual
For the cub scout,
Resembling his throat or his stomach,
As they felt to him.  It all made him sick,
All that waiting, for practice to end,
For class to end, for studies to end,
This girl to say yes, that girl to say no,
A wrestling match, an application . . .
He never knew it took care of itself.
It took a long time to learn how to wait.
He didn’t know it was a profession.
But she served him beers at twenty-something
& he waited.
She sold cigarettes.  She sold him coffee,
Mornings after.
Each clerk, each waitress, was his high priestess.
He waited on them.  They waited on him.
It took a long time to learn how to wait
But they taught him.
He could have married any one of them.
Without waiting.
But he waited for another,
One who did not know what it meant to wait for him
To come around.
She waited some.  But it took care of itself,
This thing between them.  & he could wait
For the debts or the fever to go down,
For the time to write, or the space.  Or
For her to read something very much like this.  Or
Finally
Get it.