Reflections before dawn, low
Gatherings of shadows against
An immense black ocean, the clouds
Of sleep against the purple glaze
Almost touching, almost free.

At first just a thought, like
Wind through the cedar’s – then
The slow evaporation of stars –
The piercing, tight muscles of the fisherman slowly pulling in the net.

Red, the color of the sun behind
These curtains, looking out upon the
cold black ocean sullen in its ways;
I’ve come too far now for disdain
Sometimes the weight is worth the strain.

Sometimes she can just appear
Like a flower
Even in the darkest hour
On the bench watching
The pigs, softly saying
Hello.

Upon looking back
        The universe expanding
Trying not to breathe
        Watching the dune shadows grow
And fade;
        Until the stars are sprinkled
Above and the galaxy slinks, as
        the cold palm of fall is pressed
, across this cold sand
        Across America.

On Sunday the fields were filled
with butterflies shimmering in the
sun like gold,
but by Monday their
bodies lay covered in the snow;
A million fluttering sparks
extinguished by the cold.

The sky has skin it is boiling red
Above scintillating mountains of
Granite the sun is low, the
Sun is low. I sit below a cactus
And dream of when an ocean
Was your heart, with nothing
With nothing.

Dried-out washes blood shot
I walk I walk. Chasing the memory of rain
You were the only one I
Ever loved; clouds of my youth
Slowly marched and true.

Stars, oh and an owl
Hidden in a bush of thorns, within
The canyon, echoing like the big
Bang, spiraling out.

Further and further
The night retreats into the grief of
The day.

The dark city of cactus and
Wrens frozen now

Fear

Take this flower, the dream of the weeds
Take these minutes and make a memory, sweeter
Softer than the rain. The ocean, the swamp and
The mountains. Take this soul, scoured like a shell,
And remember my bones, hard as if felt. The years, the hours
The minutes, all surely gone but not forgotten. And time?
Well time is thy womb and yours too. I listen to the piano
But hear only rain.

Feathered and wet, I wept and wept
Upon the shore's more sodden and
Unstable land (beyond the sand the boiled waves). With nothing left to give but tears; I stood and crept into the sea.