Was just about to end
and we took each other outside the street
which echoed beneath us.
We walked under the sweeping telephone lines
that sank in and out of the trees
and cut the air cleanly.
She had her face buried
in the collar of her stiff gray coat,
stiff watercolored tears quietly slipping down.
We kept our pace brisk against the light,
the coldness that nearly covered us.
We passed out of the harsh orange
underneath trees.
Through the long netted leaves
the horizon was blank.
By the edge of the river,
we were the only ones who moved.
July Five
Vodka seeps into the seats of cars. The screams of fireworks going
out, early July Five. We are watching the light bleed into morning,
and falling hopelessly asleep. The river at the edge of the grass
rushes into itself, snow-melt from the mountains giving in. Sudden
flashes of day illuminate the leaves over our heads. We are lying
with our hands just touching, thinking what it is to enter something
so blind.
Ice-long Lamppost
You and I speak through different bodies-
for you there is no "we."
You choose the lonely poet's path
down dusky corridors, beside slow canals,
cling to poems as religion.
You dream in monochrome.
You say, "Man is finding himself
with the Iron Bolt. Leave him be."
So I let you slip
under long lampposts and solitary stars.
You chant to yourself
of genome, of whiskey,
of one day maybe happiness.
Your feet echo
as you keep on walking the straight line
right over the edge
