Some nights you still
cast your shadow like
dice, always coming up
snake eyes, and I dream
I am watching you stare
at the camp fire, the moon
parting your hair, high
in the mountains growing
silent and thirsty not saying
a word until a bird comes
from nowhere, and lighting  
on your wrist to drink from
your palm while you stroked
its throat; I could have sworn
your finger was on a trigger.

I've wiped the coffee table
Down with windex
At least three times.

But here I sit.

Watching them wander
Trying to remember
To breathe.

And waiting for details
Of my brother's suicide.

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.