I thought I knew loneliness,
but that morning
when I discovered
that your toothbrush
had disapeered
was truly
the first time that I had met her

I remember the summer
that my parents crumbled.
The anger
etched upon my fathers brow;
the shame
on the end of my mothers
quick clipped sentences.

It was two years
before the affair came to light,
but the August sun blazed
never the less

I haunted the halls after dark
quietly creeping along the walls
silent specter
adjusting the thermostat
as low as it could go.

I didn’t know what,
yet I knew;
it was all wrong.
Mother knew it too,
and father just waited.
Waited for it to catch up.
Waiting as the tired marsh hare waits,
knowing that the alligator is near,
yet too tired.
Too tired to fight the inexorable.

My family grew cold,
and all the while
the night sweltered
leaving the Spanish tiles sweating
as the faithful air conditioner
chugged on.

There is an old painting in Umbria.
On the bottom,
a skeleton warns
that all men must die.
I
for one
take no umbrage with this,
for after
looking into her eyes
what else remains?

Death drifted ever so slowly
through the late August swelter

I watched you return from the lake
the stars silently blazing behind you

The moon was so gentle
like deer in the vagueness of dawn

In my voyeurism I could tell
that the fire was dripping out of you

I thought about Spring in Miami
I remembered when I still loved you.

You looked up and were startled by me
I smiled and you sat and held my hand

We silently strode
the streets of Babylon;
Revolution in the air,
but my eyes were shut.

It was late autumn then;
the nights turned cold.
It felt like yesterday
had been the equinox.

The walls were crumbling,
but I was unable
to think for the dogs –
forever babbling.


I grasped your hand,
and you squeezed back,
but we already knew
our garden had withered.

My foot sinks deeply into the snow.
The boots leave giant holes in the land,
while I follow the smaller fox prints.

Stumbling, for I have lost my way.
The sign for Bethlehem snow covered;
perhaps it is somewhere in east Vermont.

The trees are all barren from the cold.
The fox’s glare is often pitiless,
as pitiless as winters frozen touch.

Prophets and apostles migrate south now
along with the fowl of the air and Jews;
to where the signs are not snow covered.

New England longs for the warmth of spring,
but I pine for the deep Florida heat.
I want to watch the heron rise steeply.