they're nice boys
don't mean me any harm
I'm probably the not nice one
offering something I never intend to give
something I don't even think I have
maybe they know I don't have it
see the emptiness in my eyes
hear it in my voice
maybe we're both hoping we can find it
somewhere in there
help me dig

Moon, blow your light
my way, but don't cut my time

Let me dream just a little longer
while my eyelids shine
in the dark starlight

Let the ceremony end slow
back in my old home,
not in a cold forest near the sea

I want to see again
those three rivers that flow
together and listen to a woman
singing to a child
in her mild mannered way

But in spite of the night
and my wishes
something keeps creeping
past me in my sleep
like numbers of smoke

It was you, dark woman,
walking across the room bare
footed turning on the air conditioner
in the winter, a pair of scissors
in the folds of your robe.

Imagine we are home
and not lonely, imagine
our love which once cut
through strange waters
like longboats through hearts
not slow and heavy
from the moss of fear
we are here and not here
nights in our land are sad
the risings of the moon
are like sores we have given
our women, and we cannot sleep
for what we dream
the enemy will do, like filling
our children's throats with rocks
and place them in shallow swamps
where they will rise up
to tell us of fish with odd shapes
and men with torches
coming in from the sea
up to the beach on a black night
throwing open the gates
to our dying city.