The Water Line
It was so much taking,
loop and drop through steel
pins and sliding waves,
that was done before I came,
That was done without a flicker
thought for me.
I was worse as ghost
than made flesh, coiling
from blank light of
morning dew starts, glinty
Metal shading for the worse-off
of the two days.
It rushed away, flowering
as hibiscus in fall, wilted
and leaving the bruise purple prose
in mouth and to tongue,
That I kissed in salt brine,
once, and for last time.
Sometimes, in Light
The sheet folds were crisp
white, snow caps for the
heat rise of breath and breast
just as pale.
Turning, stirring, the colossal
near-miss of lifetimes
(grandparents’ picture on
nightstand to fall)
Was the only thing that kept
me waking in these same
hours with a cold separation,
a wordless form inflection.
You pass the former foot
miles, new inches we place
between ourselves and the
rocky waves of pine,
As easy as breathing,
coming home at hard day’s
end, and shelter the broken
pieces as unseen treasure.
I reach through heavy blank
space, fog of circulating airs,
rumbled machine parts cutting
slight figures, until I am
Embraced in you once more:
full circle to footsteps
that once led up rubble and
creaked wood, that became
Paces under one roof.
