Lower, lower, a little more to the right, right,
so I work my way down ahead of the rain,
laboring under the gaze of a robin overseer
relaying your wanton desire in bossy birdsong.
She keeps an eye out for worms while I mind
the angle of the rake, ride grassy undulations,
tines biting into your arching back.

Years after giving up the game
for good I still dream of turning
up late to a match juggling
a chipped red racquet,

high-impact lenses,
salt tanned right hand
glove and two
blue ***** fresh in the can,

my dream court receding
down darkened halls,
a warren of identical doors,
portholes slashing avocado

carpet with watery cross ties,
florescent flickers that merge and pool,
flushing me into flat light within
a stark white cube to toe the red

service line once again
only to find my forehand
serve impeded by jumbled
tables, five drawer files, armoires, roll top desks and bureaus

arranged into the crooked lane plat of medieval Bruges.  
Racquetball,
a game of angles
gone sadly out of fashion,

the MacGuffin in my dreams,
as it was in my playing days
when you were my true opponent,
King of Center Court running me,

stroking passing shots, methodical
while I hurled myself heedless
headlong into walls, losing on points,
nursing trophies of bruises.

Years after giving up the game
for good I dream of turning
up late to a match juggling
my chipped red racquet,

high-impact lenses,
salt tanned right hand
glove and two
blue ***** fresh in the can,

my dream court receding
down darkened halls,
a warren of identical doors, square
portholes slashing avocado

carpet with watery cross ties,
florescent flickers that merge and pool,
flushing me into flat light within
a white cube to toe the red

service line once again only to find
my forehand serve impeded
by a jumble of tables,
five drawer files and armoires,

packing crates, roll top desks and bureaus
arranged into the crooked lane plat of medieval Bruges.  
Racquetball,
a game of angles

gone sadly out of fashion,
is the MacGuffin in my dream
as it was in my playing days
when you were always the real opponent,

King of Center Court
running me, stroking passing shots
while I dove heedless, headlong into walls,
losing on points, nursing my trophy of bruises.

On Turning Sixty-One**

Fitzgerald’s last line;
longing, lovingly

rendered in fourteen
words, ode

to inevitability
in any tongue.

“So we beat on”,
aching,

“boats against the current”,
our urgent

she bu de!,
she bu de!/

I can’t bear
to let go!,

“borne back”
on music

in the Latin,
de mihi tempus/

give me more
time.  

Songs echo
“ceaselessly into the past.”

On Turning Sixty-One

Fitzgerald’s last line,
longing rendered in

fourteen words, ode to
inevitability uttered

in any tongue. “So we beat
on” aching,

“boats against the current”
our urgent

she bu de!, she bu de!/
I can’t bear

to let go!, “borne back”
by music

in the Latin,
de mihi tempus/

give me more
time, echoing

“ceaselessly
into the past.”

Hand Built House

The foundation, we dug it by moonlight
spooning when shovels were scarce,
working from plans sketched in sand
at low tide, layout recalled from a dream
someone had in which the other tended bar,
a dive with a fresco so inviting our dreamer
stepped into it and beckoned the barkeep
to distraction, to abandon, to drift off humming
a work song, one we still like to sing
from scaffold, balanced on beams, writing
our grandchildren’s names in wet cement.
Rooms of small betrayals best forgotten,
foyers of words we can’t take back bricked
up and hung with samplers of forgiveness,
load bearing walls of faith that defy formulae,
infinite hallways of hope, the door to nowhere
that never fails to amuse when we need to laugh
to keep from crying.  There’s a window stuck,
won’t you take a look?  I’ll see to that shingle
before it rains.  Work, it’s never done, walls
that won’t paint themselves, our labor of love.

Hand Built House
(anniversary poem)

The foundation we dug by moonlight  
spooning when shovels were scarce,
working from plans drawn up in sand
at low tide, layout recalled from a dream
one of us had in which the other tended bar,
a place with a fresco so inviting the dreamer
stepped in and beckoned the barkeep
to distraction, to abandon, to drift off
humming a work song, one we still sing
from scaffold, balanced on beams, writing
our grandchildren’s names in wet cement,
work that never ends, a labor of love.