Your eyes are fixed on the western horizon--
a gaze set towards the sunset on the golden coast, that
does know not that this midas mirage
is feather-light and diffracted,  scattered
like the morning paper
after your father finishes his coffee, and rises
knees creaking louder
than his chair, crooked
tie and all sloughing off
in the morning light, squinting
because it isn't evening yet.

Inevitably we will erode,
but for now, smooth and unfeeling
you lie beneath my feet
as I rock-hop across rapids
and the current threatens to
topple me into icy riffles.
you sit with a thousand of your brethren,
who though now solid
will soon enough return to sand,
and I will wade away,
forgetting I ever felt you on my heels.

we always wet our
lawns with store-bought rain and we
don't even know why.

at dawn, the shoreline:
waxed and waned and always there,
crawling towards the moon

light on the breakers.
a dull roar and sand grains spin
weary, angry foam

until it is gone
and the sun comes out and the
fishers' lines are full.

I was vacant:
dust wafted off the window-sill, swirling in the afternoon sun
when you came, rapping green fists on my empty door
peering into my cloudy windows, glancing at the address
shrugging
and letting yourself in without a key.

You floated across the creaking floorboards of the foyer,
sweeping my cobwebs into a corner.
          Did I forget to leave you the dustpan?
You strode through glass-pained doors into the kitchen,
scrubbing my china with the cold iron-water that poured forth from my pipes.
          Did I neglect to provide you with lye?

After you lumbered up the stairs, coughing on mothballs,
I imagine that you shook your head at the tassels
hung on my fraying valence,
for soon enough you hurried your way
back down the stairs
into the kitchen
through the foyer
and out of my door.
I wonder—

          Was it the dust?
          Was it the dishes?
          Did you ever stop to open my curtains?
          Did you ever peer out the window, and into the gardens below?

do you think
that Beethoven
would have wanted
to wear
a hearing aid?

though said to be golden like that of Eris,
the mores which you so savor are hollow with worms.
your stony statutes, finally crumbling, now
remind me of rose-colored saran wrap:
stretched too thin across the epochs
to bind each lawless Julia at present.
able now to be whole—free from your unadulterated peace,
spun, measured, and cut are your class lines at last.
and so with a sigh of relief so great that it could echo across
all of the Caucasus,
your Ovid, cast away, has returned.