Catch my mooring rope
And come ashore with gentle tugs,
Sweetly, softly, nibble on my ear,
And run your fingers over my weathered sails.
Trace the notches on my docks,
For the places I’ve been –
Santorini last spring, Venezia,
Marseilles in the fall.
Get rid of the doubt that hangs
Like an albatross around your neck,
Capsizing fears sending tremors up my bows.
Simply breathe like the swelling tide,
And sing a sailor’s song,
The one about the Spanish ladies,
“For we will be jolly, and drown melancholy,
With a health to each jovial and true-hearted soul.”
Loosen my knots and we’ll drift out to sea,
Two travelers with one home.

******* me so I cannot follow
Your hopscotch stumble. Tie my laces
Around the oak by Allbrook Elementary, handcuff
My wrists to the swing set of mauve plastic
And chipped cedar. Tether me in youth.
Leave me at the fudge shop on 73rd

Across from Sunday school and St. Joseph’s
Candy Land windows. Hide me beneath
Tanner Bridge as you shuffle away like some star-struck Cupid
After a ginger-haired mademoiselle in old-fashioned Mary Jane’s
And a mustard petticoat. Forget
Our first clumsy kiss, feet naked in cool creek water,
Toes nibbled by baby rainbow trout.

Bury our history of 18 years
Beside the grave of your granddaddy and
Put on your mask. You've lost me
To ambitions set high above Stanford red.
You don’t see the colors of home anymore.

Sand-crusted catacombs of dismembered dreams
Settle beside memories of the child who grew up

In rocky Harpswell, Maine. Not many beaches,
Only a foggy stretch beyond Morse Mountain --

But I used to stand ankle-deep
In the water, wait until my toes sank

Into crystalized Earth
And bubbles from Littleneck clams.  

I’d stand there until goosebumps spread upon
My blanched legs, rising up, up, like the artificial hills

Of Maya Lin’s Storm King Wavefield.
Now, when I lie alone,

Misplaced inside a vacant Manhattan studio,
I surrender to sirens and accelerated lives.

Peace comes in painting – thick oil,
Violet and claret on stretched canvas,

Depictions of neon signs and cityscapes,
Cheap t-shirt stands on street corners,

And 24-hour coffee shops with “specialty”
Blends in little white travel mugs – selling

To flocks of strangers, strutting like pigeons on cement
Sidewalks, pretending they belong.

when the moon is high on the fringe of town,
just beyond city lights and street signs,
the empty glow of neon blinks against a backdrop
of deep blue, (almost black but not quite),
freckled with luminous stars.
it’s the echo of a shepherd barking
in the mountains, chained outside
to a white picket fence, waiting
for an answer that will never come.
it’s the trickle of water in the koi pond
next door, recycled in an artificial route,
spewing bubbles and waiting for evaporation.
it’s the creak of my rocking chair as I fold
my knees to my chest and hug them,
the way I did when I was five, sitting in darkness
because the porch light burned out
and I’m too tired to replace it.
now the dog has stopped barking
and a mosquito buzzes close to my ear,
and in the distance, the absence of crickets
makes silence the loudest sound I've ever heard.