Not the attraction a boy of ten
has for his peers
he was not even among
the intimate friends
yet a kind of lust I felt
when he was around
a flutter and denser breath
and in his absence
paling of all else.

That early seeding
was a hushed gust
blowing awhile in the ravine of
deep south.

Pretty girls emerged from the dust
and the first man in me
grew out of first love.

You fell—
ruby red, and
wild-smiled—
into the Black Lake

(oh well—
nothing more than
a cycle, I know—
I’m used to the ache).

Up here, up above
on granite
beaches,
a body was found—

(it was hours below
the oil-slick
surface
before you breathed deep
and drowned).

This life - is like a liquor - sweet
Intoxicating bliss
‘Tis to be a poet
To see sunshine as a kiss
To see the trees as folk of Earth
And ocean - as world’s blood
That keeps her ever living
That sweet - mysterious - flood
Life is an amazement
To her - I am stupefied in awe
She bustles in the tenements
Behind - beyond - every door

A gap-toothed
grin—
maple syrup
skin,

and eyes
alight,
all blue and
white;

beyond the
grasp
of
prejudice,

your laugh is
truth—
I’ll follow
you.

It’s a little ways to Heaven
but the farthest place to travel—
out my window
through the alley
where you found me, collar broken;

there are mirrors in the attic
that you placed there to remind me
that a ghost can
haunt a dwelling
with a body and a heartbeat

well then maybe the horizon
stretches further than my bedroom,
past the street signs
and the shoreline
of the ocean, past the islands

where I thought I saw Orion,
on a hunt, perhaps, for something
irreplaceable
and priceless
he could take back to Poseidon

in the end he came up empty,
(there’s a lesson in there, somewhere)
which is why I
haunt the attic—
I never cared much for the sea.