So Cliché as to Call it Untitled

Working after hours,

editing,

technical specifications for a lab,

there is a sad Russian novel that I sneak glances at,

occasionally,

hiding away in another tab,

and I'm just happy to feel something,

anything,

even in the warm cushion of fiction,

mourning a century or so old idea of a person,

pointless,

truly, a self-inflicted affliction.

When Natasha tends to Andrei's wounds,

ineffectively,

or Anna has her untimely meeting with a train,

I sweep up crumbs of their misdirected passion,

unnoticed,

to later sprinkle on the stagnant and mundane.

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He says he just doesn't enjoy poetry,

doesn't understand it,

even from my own lips,

perhaps it's better this way,

my own fraught language,

my own hidden kingdom,

I let the people march about,

and then tuck them all away.