You big bonehead.

Last night I woke up
to the light of 1000
dead children from other
places where faces have
forgotten how to smile
in ***** white shirts
and smudged skirts
holding up lanterns
like lost miners looking
for answers in a dark hole.

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.