This morning's cigarette
I bought at the airport in Rome.
It wavers in a cold district
as I question my romances.

Dear cigarette, little acid stub
on a tile, you lived your span
in a long winding fume:
May my own life stick
to her hands like smoke.

On a Wednesday morning, clear and calm,
                     I went to Astor Place
and had a gypsy read my palm
                     or maybe just my face.

She said my heart was heavy
                     and my head was stuffed with lies.
But things like that weren't on my hand,
                     they hid behind my eyes.

The room is dull and dank and cold but at
least I have a hand to hold.

you are a stranger
and i am gloomy moonlight
we have met prior

On this red rug
the memories come:
the driving angels of meat,
the ocean yanked
around by the cue-moon,
the antler of sleep
that hummed past,  
the bar-room mystery
that was never solved
on a cold night when I
was about twenty-five.

Someday all of these
memories will fall away
into the crevasse
of my death.

Until then, all I can do
is bring them here
and give them to you -
as an offering,
as a plea.

Drink with me,
at the Mexican restaurant
on the wharf that serves
mezcal with chili salt,
we'll talk about all the things
no one wants to talk about.  
The lost loves, the harsh
self-treatment, the way
you're recovering nicely.
I'll share oysters,
but I'll leave soon,
my mind full of her,
full of her, full of her.

Fleeing line cross-wave,
lateen sail's white-flash,
buckling up the race-wind:
caravel out on the blue-green,
making every speed-point
under the gray coast-cloud -

You,
     on your way to me.

I still mark your birthday
on my donation calendars,
you know.

Now I'm publishing
fractions of you
from 21 years ago...

But you moved on.
You drafted another
in my place. That's ok -

I'm here to tell you
that although every angel decays,
you have decayed slowest.

They are sailing
at high tide,
the galleons.
As clouds break
on the pink
evening mantle,
and the wind
purses toward
the waists of trees,
the galleons reef
sails and draw off
into curtains of surf.

That was the day
you told me to meet you
by the split rail fence.
When I got there,
all I found were squares
of black grass
and a moon
as white as a lie.