Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful

than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon

and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone--
and how it slides again

out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower

streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance--
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love--
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure

that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you

as you stand there,
empty-handed--
or have you too
turned from this world--

or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

7pm:** it's one of those nights
8pm: watch tv
9pm: keep distracted
10pm: plan for tomorrow
11pm: go to bed
12pm: wake up and try to read until I fall asleep
1am: remember your charming smile and the way you run your fingers through your hair.
2am: flip angrily through the pages that I skim over because for some reason I strongly believe that a book on love will help me get over you
3am: think about why you don't and never did love me
4am: count the hours until I have to get up and blame you for keeping me awake.
5am: you used to keep me awake for things like talking about our futures and now I'm left here with half an empty bed wondering why your future doesn't involve me
6am: wake up tired from my 15 minute sleep and wonder how even on the darkest nights the sun still manages to rise
7am: I'm drinking coffee out of a cup that used to touch your lips every morning, like me, and I know you won't be back for either of us

you know
when you sing
to the stormy grey waters below
there is a drawn-out moment
in which you wonder
where you really are

Late August 8 o’clock is barefoot, and sunburned in the places that are always sunburned. Worn skin and deck slats hold onto leftover noon. Beneath, swirls the near unknown. Blue-black and edgeless, it’s awake but calmer as the day savors a slow-motion finish. Out of respect for the sunset, those at rudder or wheel embrace a lakewide no wake zone. Our blooms of whistle and sigh fill the dusk hour.
Someone somewhere is lighting a fire. It can be felt in the shoulder blades, when breathing slows. A ripe sense of abundance carries in the peach pink light—a promise that the season won’t fade, that deck children never age, and their waters never freeze. The birch chorus agrees, and this false truth soothes tired limbs that know better, but choose to accept the judgement of the night arriving. Because tender are the day’s dying breaths, and a special care is taken here for every move.
Peeling away layers, hair stands high on the skin with the pines on the hillsides. Bundle your things under the bench, or the winds may take them. There is a silence here with something to say. Toes hug wood’s edge and the muckgrasses nod in tune to a song that is there but not wholly heard. It’s important to watch first; it’s important that you try once again to read the neon pattern in the waves. A familiar laugh through cabin window will interrupt this.
The ladder is better for the evening swim. Submergence is best performed slowly then all at once, with careful attention paid to the detoured bloodflow of sunburned skin. Reflections of the promise unravel as they scatter into sky. Dip your darkness into the horizon and feel the day’s heat collapse inward, easing the blushes of your superficial pain. Let the other foot leave the trust of algaed metal, as the body’s pieces spread suspended. A group of fiery orbs blink aloft in an endless cold.
Our stars are connected only by stories, and here—where the sky is reflected in water—the hair on your hillsides can nod along to the half-heard tune of eternity. This is the end of the dock.