Arriving in the dark
like a listing ship
at your dock
my fingers skinned
all ****** at the knuckles
from christening your door
like a bottle on a prow
or a broken mirror
in the morning, caught
in the hurricane
of your crazy hair.

Morning will be here
soon enough says the moon,

only the night knows the truth
that lies dark in your heart

where love sleeps forever,
deep, and never dreaming.

Some memories I give her
to drown in dark water,

like an old revolver
thrown into a river,

nights spent drinking
the moon under a table

made of maple and fables
we once believed true

love lost, found
and lost again together

where only the mountains
and seas last forever.

Evenings like these
black as a keyhole

crossing a shadow cast
on the side of the road

where the ground sleeps
dreaming of smooth stones

and nights without love
earning a dangerous living

like a breath under water
choked on the mystery

of cornbread
and a farmer's daughter

I wake up thirsty
hungry and alone.

There was a girl
I used to swap paperbacks
and spit with, once
I fixed her wiper blades,
I remember the soft dead wings
on the windshield,  pretty
as you please

She was alone in her shoes
listening to something
that kept getting darker
and glowing like morning
on the oil spilled under her truck,
she was drifting through
the rosewater of her soft red hair

She only wanted to be rolling
off a swollen river, sliding
out of a clean slip, turning
over in a deep sleep, trailing
a shimmering thread, hiding
under a pile of wet leaves

Then there she was sailing
in her river of blood,  going
white and smelling like smoke
from a struck match behind
closed blinds on a ceramic floor,
a white blouse red as a sharp knife
collecting the light of mourning.

Messengers bring me no messages,
teachers do not raise your voices,
like a flag I will raise my hand, like
a mad dog looking up on a hill
in the afternoon, I will smell you out
in the dead water where my tongue
is held captive, if it is to be silent
it will be silent in my mouth
where darkness and the scent of roses
come out like smoke, I smoke alone
in the woods to be smoking
so I can say I have smoked,
I call out madam
shall I undress you for a fight,
the wars are naked that you wage tonight
in a bed as broad as a battlefield
as the sword you mock the fallen with
and the angel says what is dead is
dead, I dream what I dream.

Near morning
by the sea
where I tangle
with the shadows
like a cage of sad tigers
by a grave I find a rope ladder
left by a thief
as the tide steals my eyes,
prisoners of time
without a hammer
trying to drive a stake
in the ground
and this is my crime
living and dreaming.