"There in the midst of it so alive and alone
Words support like bone..."  Peter Gabriel's  "Mercy Street"

Orion abandons the sky
dropping his club
casting his belt toward the horizon
Just once, for a moment, he glanced away
from exalted ****
his vanquished prey

He’d seen the picture—
A girl of sixteen
lying awake—muses in her head
eyes shut, arms thrown back
behind pillow
Tee shirt stretch across lean chest
Hips mingle with blankets
She is scattered there
among the minions of her hair
behind her mouth of unkissed words
____

McCaffery's Coffee is open late
He’s seen the picture
Muses in his head
His arm almost around her
Hers on his shoulder
Small—feather-light fingers
lift the hair of his neck
Reaching around her
his hand searches and slides
along her silk-draped hind
...and the view he has is amazing!
___

Music— and waves pounding and lapping
at the life he fears....

Little boat stranded in gray mists
till a thousand tiny birds alight
in a peppering and fluttering
stir of time
in greens of brine
as the sun pries through….
___

McCaffery’s is ready to close
but the owner, knowing
douses the overheads and turns away
leaving candlelight to crouch and duck
and blink in circles

How long and free we
are allowed to gaze....
so full of wind and riffling water
Stars above and stars below
blooming on the floral silk of night
Vespered lilacs exhale
Votives of warmth
beneath his hand
Silk sweating—
familial in their rocking

Distant lightning loosens eternity