Love is like driftwood
coming and going
with the tide

Love is a hurt animal
breaking the quiet
of the night

Love is like smoke
through a spiderweb
hard to hold onto

Love is pleasure, love is pain
like sunshine and rain.

She is an atlas
her eyes deepest
and darkest Africa

Unfolded I hold her
tracing the source
of her diamonds and gold

In search of the motherload.

I gathered all
  the driftwood
of my love
  and built a fire
at high tide
  watching the ocean
rise from the smoke
  in so many eyes.

I've worked with shovel and
trowel half of my life but right
now if I could recall the hypo-
tenuse of a right triangle I'd
try another angle for putting
those tools to use digging a rect-
angular hole so neat and six feet
deep then sew my mouth shut
just so I can't tell the devil where
to go when it's cold and I'm sleeping
with white slugs behind my ears like
big Beltones so I can hear the mock-
ingbird sing those words on my stone.

She wears the sea
in her eyes
and dances with the sand
beneath her feet

I would swear I could hear
the sun playing on the ivory
keys of her smile

and at night when the wind
is right across the sound

she runs her fingers
through my waves
and lingers while she plays

Für Elise on a black piano.

I took a broom to seven generations
of moths in the spare bedroom closet
when I saw the red wool sweater in a box
with crossed white cloth baseball bats
sewn on the back and a # 1 patch smack
dab on the heart; the window to my past
shattered like glass on a long ago Saturday.

Deserts are the color of her hair
Gold and bronze her skin

Silver veined salty rains
Tears a color never named

The ocean tries to please her eyes
Reflecting blue onto the skies

Or grays as gray
As the coldest days

To ever grace my way.