Haig Khatchadourian: We Live Alone

we live alone
whether together or apart

whether shuttling about
in the Undergrounds of time
rushing from station
to station with the miming crowd
whether caught
in the silver noose
of each other's laughter
or held captive
in each other's arms

whether together or apart
we are alone
in separate cells
of delinquent desires
scribbling our despair
on the dirty walls
enacting violent dreams
or escape or release
hoarding blunted hopes
like bits of broken saws

we stay apart; we too
o my love; but
in our apartness, i and you,
our fingertips, like
torches of pinewood, touch
a moment (mortals call
it love); we manage
(we do) to speak together
a little word or two.


This poem has appeared in
Armenian-American Poets: A Bilingual Anthology, ed. and trans. Garig Basmadjian (Detroit, MI: Alex Manoogian Cultural Fund of the Armenian General Benevolent Union, 1976). It was been reprinted here by kind permission of the author.