Sleeping With the Same Mistress

There I am
awake
without pain
just
dull.
There I am 
lying/sitting/standing/breathing
without
the candle in my hand.
I slept tonight
with the same sullied mistress who
led me by the hand before.
Who I
led first through old notebooks
and then through paper rolls
in Memphis bathrooms in Memphis
bus stations
and then through
the screen,
the silver screen.
She is my
strange bedfellow,
the gun I keep loaded in
my pocket.
And when in danger
or serious depression
she calls me
like some newly
discovered and nimble,
supple thing.
When I was young
she too
was young,
and we were none the wiser.
When I was married to my God,
I saw her as a harlot;
I twisted and turned and ripped her to pieces I
put her in safekeeping
in parts,
but mostly I
dismissed her,
"arrogance"
I said to myself,
I say to myself still.
And she says to me,
with tempting lips
"come..."
What more do you tell
a man who is weak?
For if he,
be indeed that witty
where would lie the charm?
So in stages she she comes to me;
first in whispered messages,
then in long conversation until
I feel intelligent again;
my crime.
If I were bold
I would tell her "leave."
If I were bolder still
I'd beg her "stay."
If she were mine I would
I would remember her more sweetly
but she
belongs to no man.
Certainly not me.