“Spirit
is Life
It flows thru
the death of me
endlessly
like a river
unafraid
of becoming
the sea”
-Gregory Corso

A hundred thousand red laps
from one midnight to the next:

the valve clutches and clasps
at wet clapping truths

but they slip away like silk scraps
in the black gap breeze.

The heart is no throne, but wrapped
gnarl - the abandoned winter's nest,

denuded strakes of burlap strap
curved and curled into the branch fork,

disguising the lacuna and the lapse.
Does the river gladly pass into the sea?

Or does the sea sip it down, easy as a nightcap
with chill willow and spruce,

another blue vein-line snuffed on a map,
another salt stone silting an unseen reef?