Green before me blurs a wall;
Intermittent orange breaks the monochrome,
Hills behind ****** distinct treeshapes above
The wall-line, trees and shiny SUV
And a little field.  Here, the wood is

Weak and termite-ridden,
Here, is a crumbling frame,
And here, no one
Is heard singing, singing—

Éste abandoned for a European long time,
Ése for an American, aquél surrounded     rusty silos
                                       a church, a storage unit,
                                country roads and pick ups

Filled with lumber to
Fatten up the fireplace,
Keep it warm for the winter,
Everyone hidden sheltered in the house
With hot cider and steam and the pine tree,
Surrounded everywhere by a white sea of snow.

The sun still sets fairly late—
Eight o’clock it’s usually dark.
Its rays are still warming, during the day,
But shadows are growing longer
And the wind under the shadows
Is growing colder and finer,
Weaving between the fibers
Of your jacket to sting your skin,
Like a thousand tiny needles.

Nippy days are becoming more frequent,
But not this one—yet.
It hasn’t changed in, oh, seven, eight years,
At least.  The sun shines down on us
Over the grass, the wind
Whistling across the flat field
As we played.

The TV stays on all afternoon,
When you’re home.  Always sounds, noise,
Cooking, hollering, announcers
Saying nothing just to talk.
Cut this day out,
Slide it forward five years,
Ten, whatever.
It still fits.

And when you’re not home,
It’s like it was so long ago,
Outside on a day when everything
Is changing, playing
And having fun.

The touch that launched a thousand ships,
The one touch in the dark,
The one moment that launched four months,
Four months at sea before they wrecked
On the shore, ruins of the snow.

                                             I sit upon the shore
Watching, watching the thousand ships
With her hand (spin up) entangled in mine (spin down),
Placed by that one touch, so long ago.

Brought together and thrown apart by
Brought together and thrown apart

The wooden ships lay upon the shore,
Damp wood softly over twinkling snow,
Memories of stars.  Some things linger,
Forever entangled.  Whether alive or happy or dead or what unknown.

I sit alone upon the shore
I sit alone staring onto the sea
I sit alone, thinking, wondering,
The sea darkly,
One with the night.  And the memories.

Picking up fragments
Next to the lapping waves, lapping gently
Like a puppy in a bowl, lapping on the snow.
Twinkling reflecting snow and the stars.
That one touch of her hand,
Imprinted on mine as a tattoo.

Remember when we were young?
Do you?
Do you
Remember when we were—
When we would—
We would laugh, play,
Carefree.
Remember when we—
I would appear,
As from nothing,
To laugh, without a thought,
With you.
Remember when—
Glowing bright face,
White blond hair,
Pure joy.
Remember—
And what about now?
And what about

The tiny, black transistor, three wires,
One two three, ramrod straight get bent,
Quarter-inch strain, needle-nose pliers and it's broken.
Instructions: look, ask what "install"
Means: to bend the leads, push in, solder
Tightly and well, no crossing, to the board.

Lumps all over the green circuit board,
Yellow blue black etc., flip-side wires
Cut short, little silver domes of solder
With the leads set up just right, bent
Just right to stay in when you flip it over to install
Them so they don't fall out, but lost is better than broken.

The one transistor, Q1, J310, broken,
Lying against the also-black of the countertop, board
Loudly near, demanding, "Just install
It already, ******."  Just the two of three wires
On the Q1, last one lying lonely bent
Crying out, hollering, screaming for solder.

Look at the one straight piece of solder,
Two leads protruding from one hole, broken
Off by careless, melting hands, left stranded on the board,
Cut off from the spool, low melting point, easily bent.
It looks just like "one of the boys," the real wires.
Copper wires conduct well, very ductile and easy to install.

When you are attempting this, to install
Everything in its place (and there is one), beware excess solder;
Too much crosses from  hole to hole, uniting two wires,
Shorting it out and leaving you drifting with a broken,
Useless green hunk of circuitry and electronics (a board,
A dead board), which is just as useless as your leads which are too bent.

Some of these **** parts come pre-bent
(Why not each?), real easy to slide in and install,
Just bend slightly after sliding into the board,
Slightly enough to hold for the solder
Which is to come, assuming it's not broken
Yet, and that yours are still whole wires.

On the back, at the end, identical dots of solder
Run the length of the board.  If it's not broken,
Run a current through; see if you get a shock by the wires.

The smooth, clean guitar floats out of the speakers,
Out of the open windows, and through the night
Air.  It crosses the street, making its way to
Quiet and empty storefronts, abandoned for the night.
Two in the morning is usually pretty empty.

When you can't see any other cars out, it's easy
To assume there aren't any at all.  But when we just
Missed that blue Scion, so close I could see
Her eyes and her mouth wide open,
You'd think that would be a reminder that those
Red octagons read STOP.

You even told me that.  “Just because you're
Mad at me is no reason to ignore the law.”
But I didn't need advice from you, no passenger
Seat driving allowed.  And neither of us
Saw the black Expedition as it exercised its right of way.
And I was the only one to see it afterward.

Classic bier pose: eyes closed, arms folded over chest, everything aligned perfectly.
Peaceful, opposite of the turmoil in everyone around you.
You never did think about others at all.

In the flames I can see your body still.
Peaceful pose: gone.
Now: contortionist.
Eight-year-old Chinese gymnast,
perfect 10 I’d say, but perhaps I’m biased.
Over there the judge says 7.99;
stingy, just call it 8 even (or put the taxes in the **** score).
I think it was the stress of the audit.

That’s why your wife left,
the audit.  And the hookers, you ***** *******.
I’d **** on your pyre,
but all the alcohol would catch it on fire
and send it racing up to light ME,
instead of one of your nasty cigarettes.

Tax evasion, lying
(eight, count ‘em, eight dependents:
birds #s 1, 2, 3 (bird feeder pays for itself this way, don’t it?),
chipmunk, dog, the mouse in the cellar,
bird number 4 (only in the summer, not domesticated),
even the random fox), you name it.
How did you run that for so long?

Hero’s funeral, the great pyre, a pile of ashes.
Something a chimney sweep would leave,
and about as important.  Did they ever find
cause of death—the wife?

Good, I helped her.
She needed a shoulder to cry on after you died,
and you sure as hell weren’t there (typical).

A pile of ashes,
ashes to ashes, etc., n’est-ce pas?