the slow salt of her tongue licks deep the sandstone
that broke and bound her to shore

The earth moves
according to its natural principles -
I love you according to mine.

Youth has left us so quickly -
the sun was once
a sweet saffron bolus
we swallowed so eagerly
fat day after day.

Now it's a quiet yellow *****,
that chokes on its own easting and
goes down like a horse pill in the west.

Instead, we are with moon -
I pull you close sometimes in tide,
then you're away waning, waning -
doldrums, tantrums.

If only I could swing low over you,
in your green rain town,
& not be pushed away.

It's no longer easy
to share the days with you.
I fill with ulcers
that bleed all into me,
the body the echo of the mind.

But I love you on natural principles -
you have touched my life all over.
Where I go, I bring you;
you are still the voyage home,
even when your replies come
so terse and lacking invitation.

I've been drunk for days.
Last year we were to be married -
this year I have a bleeding ulcer
& I cry every morning,
medicated with scotch.
Your name is a meadow.

The glass stands here
in the lee of the rattle;
the sun's yellow syrup erupts
into this bottle-breeze;
I will signal to you
in the ways you understand;
I will be your silver armor,
your lance and pennant.

The fog has an edge today,
gashing buildings in two,
beheading the tree line,
dispersing the relays.
The sun dies in the east,
throttled by an accumulating
grayness that chews.
Watch the rain approach
on its blacked skate,
drowning the ironbound
fence-work that skirts
the blustered apartments.
This neighborhood
is lost to me -
it chokes and retches
under a slip of sick.
The moon is just
a drain plug.
Wherever I go next,
I will paper with you,
your ink-sugar eye,
the unconscious throne of hair
that throws me over.

There is a mourning dove
cocked and tense on the olive sill
in dense rain, watching me.
I could fly to you,
if I were built like that -
hollow-*****, flashing past
these green and pink limits.
My arc would be unique,
no little starling chop,
no house finch bolt,
or fish crow sine,
past seeded wood to the sea,
I'd manage the upper air,
the transparent sinew,
landing in that little fork
by your slid window;
the song I'd sing
would fill your heart
with new choices.

The cherry tree pauses in
mid-pink detonation
as streetlights snap off,
a negative yellow sinus
in the soft-shelled skull
of dawn's first sagging.
My house is sold soon,
sterile without you
& your sun-stamp.
I will move closer
to the greenish loom
we both loved.
Here - a handful
of raw blossoms,
an invitation.