Between
fresh sheets,
they open their mouths,
gulp sleep.
The
crunched springs
(windows up) sound
like cellos, tuning:
low, autumnal, worn.
It is a dry fall.
They feed their rooms
their
sighs.
Things hit their marks
outside,
aircraft,
crickets.
C-5s, big-bellied
with ordnance,
jump
over the moon.
The cicada
resumes.
|
-
continued from column one -
Their sighs
run
to breath’s edge, back.
Powdered and bathed,
snugged
and tucked,
beloved
lie of continuity.
The
door sucks shut.
One leaf —
palmed x-ray
of
a day
(soccer fields,
victory, friends) ---
descends:
stark animals,
dull sunsets,
blessings,
meals, baths,
toweled and talcumed white
as plastered lath,
now
I lay me,
do not slay me,
let me stay
alive,
alive,
asleep |
|
The
ripples on your wall :
fake sea-lights the soft sunlight makes.
You
sleep under water.
You,
the sweet sea’s magic,
I, the fisherman.
Learn
to love the counterfeit
and in the mess of shalts and shoulds and musts
find what you want.
Remember
I stood here loving
what is not here.
|
