It is almost summer
and the hot night
seems so quiet
as the wind on the water
lifts the sails on that ship
sailing west like smoke
from the fire I lit
to burn the driftwood
of my dreams and desires
until morning comes like
that sad-eyed Moriah
I've admired from afar.

When I was young
I didn't have any doctor bills
now I get statements
special delivery, envelopes
full of X-rays I hold up
to the moon, that rock
sinking deep in my gut
looking like all of those cold
feelings I've swallowed
the many curses held inside
wooden matches chewed twice
and not spat out, a cancer
like a two-headed speckled trout
swimming around
trying to find its way out
when in fact it's just a feeling
I get trying to swallow regrets
one rusty old fish hook at a time.

I dreamed you came aboard
to commend me to the sea
and I dreamed you rode a horse

to your wedding sidesaddle
even though the only thing
you let between your legs

was the melancholy strings
of the cello, you with your instinct
for music and dangerous suitors

I still place to this day what is left
of the afternoon in care of your hands
kissed by so many strange men

whose names you can't remember
on the long nights we spend
together without sleeping

in the same bed alone we are
dreaming the dreams
we dream when all love is lost.

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