Farewell is a good word
it often returns

in the dark like Charon
floating by in my own
listing imagination

I hold light for his boat
and echo goodbye

like the long nights
follow days, without pain
death is only melancholy

she said you'll have to say it
soon, you know,
to your child and your wife
and, yes, even to yourself.

in plain print, he tells me it's a hawk
with a broken wing

I close my eyes...all I see is a black,
greasy bird, barely bigger than a sparrow

not even worthy of Poe-itizing into a raven;
certainly not a fierce falcon

why can't I see thee, red tailed hunter?
you hiding in clouds adrift behind my eyes?

no, the crow's there, shining in a gold sun; seems
I'm not destined to imagine grander birds of prey

at least not today, reading your words of broken things,
the dark clouds of your dreams

A man without
scars is like a river
without water
like a room without
a window
or a son to carry on
the name
and a man without
a woman
is a man without woe
or sand or a heart
to be broken
a man
who is dreaming only
of a tractor
and wide open
fields with no hay
to be mown.

Time is a witness
to the mark of the moth
in my hair, and I swear
the nights are getting longer

I keep putting it off
hoping I would discover
a star no one knew was there

and I can only wonder why
the bluebirds die
on the power lines singing

if god had a heart
he'd take me instead
and put a thirty ought six
straight through my chest

just for believing
that somewhere there's a nest
with my name on it.

Some nights I shade
my eyes
from dark dreams
like a broken hawk's wing
stuck in the hot tar
of a back country road
when sleep seems
like a long ways to go
in a bad war
and desire and desire
and desire like a fire
in my bones
won't leave me alone.

Mud, whiskey, death
and bad debts, the river's
high water, mysterious birds
flying south disappearing
like a youngest daughter,
no good men, bad intentions,
changing seasons, unexplained
pains, all of these are reasons
I've seen good women weeping
after the hardest rains came.

with moonlight, he travels mostly
at night, past snoring hikers and embers
of fires that cooked their food, kept darkness
at bay, and heard what they had to say

if the coals could only speak, perhaps
he would find the right circle of stones,
a black heap of carbon that once glowed
red and gold, and her tale would be told

at least he would know the last words
she spoke in this wilderness--whether she
chose to vanish into the deep wood, fodder
for the scavengers

or was the prey of evil men,
who lurk at every turn--in bustling city
and quiet forest as well--vipers who strike
without warning, without curse or cause

when the moon's light wanes, he moves yet
in darkness, feeling his way, a nocturnal detective,
hoping to find what the others have given up
for lost and registered among the dead:

sign or scent of her--black coals or white bones,
a piece of tattered clothing, the canvas backpack
with her name, the hiking boots he laced for her
which left tracks he forever yearns to find...