At the third street on the left
from Bourbon Street,
the reddish brown waterline
follows us to the hotel

The sleek white walls appear
to be from ‘after Katrina’
like many here

In the spring sun
the pale green lies deserted
in the shadow of
a long line of soot
coughing cars

Where Sachtmo's park
seems forgotten
after cleaning and renovation

is the home of this
other musician with worldly
allure, like a fresh blueberry
on a flat beaten hill
full of loose ends

pocket full of pennies
rolling across the kitchen floor,
down the steps, out the door,

pennies running into the street
(and i'm right behind them.)

"where do you think you are going? and
I m feeling a bit embassed, so i whispered.
"you belong to me,

to keep or to throw away." and

there s a light tap on my shoulder,
and the policeman tells me,

"better find them soon
before they turn to rust,

I couldn't find mine
and I'm sure they turned into dust."

and the echoe from the hole
in my pocket shouts,
" his dreams are
trying to find the waterline."

i did find a few of them, a handful,
(I had swiped my hand as they tried to roll away)

I did grasp a few

but some of the other
pennies i threw into the air
where they may have fallen,
I know not where.

Her eyes transmit, his nerve ends become receptors.
Blood pumped in to his veins demands"Bring her closer"
His nostrils flare, lips get swollen,a tingle spreads all over.

A hotblooded woman, instinctively sense such moments.
Her eyes are now lit up by desire, laced with refined lust.
And  lips acquire a luscious pout,colored a shade deeper.
Her eyes wink involuntarily,can't hold it there, they droop.
In a sudden weakness of eyes,both touch the waterline,close.

He could hear his heart beat faster,mercury rise is palpable.
From his inner sanctum,the beating of the drum is now louder.
Her eyes flare in the tremors that rock her to her very  roots.
Those eyes are wet,the erupting spring of  lubricious intent.

It's out in the open, neither him nor her could now pretend
Furtive glances  do not ignite anything other than coy smiles

Here is Cedar Draw, a stream which
spills free from the dam upstream
and then slowly licks its way westerly
among the billowing cottonwood
and volcanic boulders that still appear red-hot,
flattening out, pooling here and there
where fat trout and perch can feed
on luckless grasshoppers and mayflies
blown into the water by the wind.

Here is Cedar Draw, widening into
lush shallows with bulrush and cat-tails
clicking in the wind, showy red-winged
blackbirds clinging to stalks high above
the waterline, and where snowy egrets
ply the mossy banks for frogs. The
only sound heard is the chittering of
birds and that warm summer breeze
softly moaning and sighing for you alone.

Here is Cedar Draw, as fine a place
a poet could every hope to find to relax,
meditate, sip a little port wine, tease the
iridescent-blue damselflies that abound
here, cool one's feet at water's edge,
scribble in a notebook disjointed thoughts
that may or may not make it into a poem,
perhaps to doze a little and finally to
rouse up and thank your muse for such
a great day and such a splendid spot.

--

from the void
the mountain speaks
the beat goes on
in these desolate peaks

moss covered stacks
of sea floor and mantle
embrace and fold
in metamorphic tangle

stunted fir clings
graying roots exposed
a rocky, barren life
is all this sapling knows

snowcapped elderberry
scale the crevice
where bear and wind
make raucous passage

avalanche chutes
gracefully recline
in verdant shades
to the waterline

lie in the meadow
to calm the chatter
make still the noise
to blunt the clatter

upon the coming
of soft night
undress this silence
angel mine



*I came to a point where I needed solitude and just stop the machine of 'thinking' and 'enjoying' what they call 'living,' I just wanted to lie in the grass and look at the clouds.

-Jack Kerouac

I searched for these words up in the attic
with narrow ribbons of enlightenment streaming
through all-too-small windows
igniting the drifting dust specks on fire,
and on the streets in the gutters
that were gloom-spattered with murky water lunging
towards the grated storm guards
as if they were salvation.
I scrounged through soaked and disintegrating cardboard boxes
bearing the letters L O S T A R T S
and old, musty and molded trunks
that had broken locks and missing keys.
I dug them out of  soft-cloth linens, carefully selected them
from heaping mounds of scrap
-like sifting through a junk yard-
to find those precious bits of silver,
sweet iridescent bubbles
encasing so delicately words like
"language" and "cellar."
I gathered these knic-knacks and baubles
and I alighted them with utmost care
through winding black back streets in my little burlap bag
to my borrowed safe-haven room. And without
turning on the lights,
the door was shut and stopped and I was perched
with great secrecy,
cross-legged upon my bird's nest of a bed,
daintily extracting each little orb
and examining them and all their wonder.
Tri-dimensional little things, that, no matter how you turned them,
seemed always to be a bi-dimensional halo of pale, golden light.
They shone, each minute embryo, like an old-time city lamp,
before such evil things as electricity came
and robbed them of a candle's beauty.
And its core, as is true with humans, is its most glorious aspect.
There is a transparent ocean in there,
with roiling waves that spin the currents
and coax every particle to circulate.
And caught in the eye of that undersea tornado are flecks of glitter,
so tiny that you would not be aware of them at all
were it not for the magnificent glimmer that they sparked,
magnifying and throwing back the fainter glow
of that ethereal encircling band.
Pixies that danced at the autumn festival.

I found these words for you,
broken and perfect and shining,
and collected them on a shelf where I could view them
before I handed them over to you.
I collected them with you in mind.
Can’t you tell?
I found words like “lustrous” and “lust”
because they reminded me of you.
I arranged them sporadically,
and smiled to see “alabaster princess”
sitting unintentionally before my eyes.
And how you are my Alabaster Princess.
But oh dearest-mine, be wary of how you find these words.
Use them sparingly, and do not tarnish them.
Keep them like nuns keep themselves: ******.
If you must write them,
then write them in pretty hand-made inks,
and decorate each letter with dips and swirls, each letter a flourish.
And if you must utter them,
say them quietly, and in simple complementary sentences.
You can be Kennedy for a day,
or speak softly and let them be their own big stick.
Keep them uncommon, like you are uncommon,
and know when the repetition of weaker words can make them herculean.
Guard these words with all your strength:
with that sword hanging deftly on your wall,
with that letter-opener on your kitchen table,
with that pocket knife in your favorite pair of jeans.
Those words will save us one day,
once the world has reverted back to an aristocracy.
With that noble face of yours and this clever brain of mine, love,
we’ll con them into making us their master,
gold and land or no.
even if the sole things we own are our names.
And we’ll teach them again how to speak,
with all the sweetheart mightiness of poetry that speech was intended to have.
And we will learn to bow with all the eloquence of B.C. bible writing.
Machiavelli never saw rulers like us.

We’ll cry like the Devil on a Sunday morning
for the alteration in our names from D’evil,
and whomever first declared “they’re there yonder to get their ***!” shall know my wrath
(although that may have been me).
Parlez vous Français?
Non.
These words that I pillaged
from the mouths of great stone grave monuments,
I hope that you will remember them well.
I hope that you will pour over them
and gaze at them in all of the bedazzled stupor that I did.
And once upon a time,
when children loved to read
and sought the same type of affection that I have at last found in you,
when even the Greek gods were playing with pens and devising an alphabet,
I sat there on rocky shore, seasoning with saltwater,
drawing with my toe under the waterline,
your face.
Pretty as a picture,
and worth a thousand words.

Three evenings ago,
I blasted my music so sharply
that my melancholy heart
began beating to the rhythm of that old song
I used to play when I was trying to forget about you.

This is the second goodbye.

The first goodbye,
there were whirlpools in my heart and
tsunamis in my eyes.
My words were barbed with unexpected truths
that grazed deeply,
don’t worry your words in response required
medical assistance after as well.

The first goodbye was displaced by a deafening silence
that forced me to write so that
I would be comforted by listening to my pen slide
along the paper or my fingertips
skate along the keyboard.

The whirlpools in my heart and
tsunamis in my eyes brought you waves
three months later
but by then I no longer desired noise to help
cover up the excruciating silence for I
was finally sleeping peacefully at night.

Three months later you acted
as if I was a lighthouse and you
were a sailor longing for the shore because
the waves you felt were too strong,
as if I could and would help guide you out of this.
You sent me messages hoping I would give
the signal to bring you back,
but let me repeat myself,
you weren’t longing for me, you were longing for the shore.
You were searching for guidance
that would then bring you to safety and then
once everything was sound and safe,
you would abandon the shore and
discover the roads that people drive on and forget their way back.

Time in one way or another had shortened the distance between us.

But now this is the second goodbye.

The sun is shining, the air is warm and flowers are blooming.
This may not be rambunctious and crushing like the previous tsunamis and whirlpools but do know,
it’s as constant as the waves crashing on to the shore,
day after day after day.
The waterline being recreated wave after wave
acting as a quiet banner that reads:

“I’ve made it this far without you and
I’ll do it again and again and again.”

Wave of Emotion©

Where doth it begin, this wave that cometh over me
That leaves me at times in great overwhelm
Unable to respond
Frozen in time and space

It seems as though one day the seas of my mind are calm
All is well at the helm of life
Clear sailing as it were
But underneath...

Like an undertow or undercurrent
Swells are forming that will one day reveal themselves
Maybe it starts like a ripple on a body of water
Building up steam

Hence I do not know that which is coming
Lurking, slowly building up
Underneath the tranquility
Waiting to erupt or burst forth

If one were able to see the tides shifting
Maybe one could get a sense of the impending storm brewing
Something like a light keeper
Warning Captains of impending ill wind

But alas it is not so
The waves come rolling in
On an unsuspecting shoreline
Crashing unto its midst

Growing stronger from some unseen source
Wreaking havoc and intensifying as it goes
The storm unleashed with great impotence
Inflicting the desired impact

The groundswell of emotion now set free
Erupts in its various forms, anger and disgust
Fear and sadness arise sometimes
Disguised as surprise and happiness

This co-mingling of human outlets
Can plunge us into the depths of despair
Into the caverns of our vessel and sink us
To depths undiscovered and fraught with danger

Yet like all hurricanes above the waterline
They too shall weaken, wear themselves out
And over time they lose power
Once again we will feel like we are in control

Calmness is the order of the day; after all
We are “emotional beings” living through a human existence.
And it is so and
So it is.

Andreas Simic©

The night so long
ships calling
stay away
come

blindly pierce
clouds
anchored
at the waterline

engines throb
close, yet not
though eyes strain
soft white contains

merely
opaque outlines
shrouding
shapes familiar

eagles
materialize
singing
arise, arise

dissipating
melted wisps
ascend to kiss
returning sun

will illumination come
with fading notes
of this
fog song?

Rushing downstream
everythinggoesbysofast
gasping above the waterline
idontrecognizeanythinganymore
grasping at rocks and branches
wherethehellaminow
heaving breaths haul me ashore
ilaygasping&vomiting;
where the hell am I?

It is a lonely life we chose;
a keeper and his mate.
We live on Execution rocks
saving sailors from sad fates.
The tower light protects the Sound
from Sand’s Point to ‘Rochelle.
The rocks are cruel, the lives they claim
Doubtless with Neptune dwell.

One day, exploring our domain,
I chanced upon a man.
Unusual, to say the least,
to stray so far from land.
His hair was white, his eyes steel blue,
blue as Ocean deep.
A sudden chill passed over me
Like a terror born in sleep.
He asked me if I knew this spot,
And how it got its name.
How, during the Colonial times,
Condemned men here were chained.
At low tide it was no matter
But imagine their distress
As the tide grew ever higher
until it strangled their last breath.
How horrible a fate they faced;
abandoned and alone.
Their screams were mad and guttural
as they drowned in Ocean foam.
There, down at the waterline
I saw a brace of chains.
When I turned back to look at him-
Only I remained.


It is a lonely life we chose;
a keeper and his mate.
We live on Execution rocks
saving sailors from sad fates.
I spend my off time reading
in our little house of stone.
I seldom venture to that place-
and I never go alone.
But sometimes, when the moon is full
And the tide is running high.
I imagine that I hear the screams
of a man about to die.
Published January 28, 2013
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this is my song in the desert
stumbling in my pursuits
when my mind, it is dry, but my heart it does beat
dug deep inside my pretended screams

i yell to hear myself feel
buried beneath a silent mind
clawing my walls and playing my keys
someday my hip bones will turn into wings

flying across this desert of skin
i cling to the hints of hope tossed within
and wait for the stars to fall closer and near
as i wait to whisper along my desert song

my fingers bleed so desperately
hungry to cling to that tree made of pain
but i am afraid of my weight so to stay sane
i lean into silence and kiss my own fingers clean

i walk along the curve in my spine
only once i heard the muffled sounds come clear and clean:
i am not free
and this is my song in the desert

i smile my denials, what a sweet smile
i don’t want to be the judge in all of his trials
please stop these thoughts from running too deep
add one more thorn to your crown to bleed

when i cannot breathe, still this is my song in the desert
when everything in me is dry
please let me hum and escape this quiet brain
until the sun falls out of the sky

i tried to find my rooftops
to find my wings in bloom
i tried to leap into your arms
but afraid to tear your scars, i fled

i slept inside my skin instead
tracing shapes with my restless legs
but oh please send help, i am not fine
i harbor the assassin inside my mind

i grasp for an angel and touch a dream
lost in a city with only me
i threw my maps and watched them drift
my knuckles are mountains and my veins fake streams.

in the very dark back corner of my brain
up a serpent arises
to kiss my lies in slow depart
this alone i cannot slay

and this is my song in the desert
my flesh i am desperate to bleed
but my weapons are dull, rusted and old
and my battle cry fades into silence

on the day that i cried
she said she saw an illness in my eyes
your deathly crown sits along my waterline
cupping my iris, reminding me of their crimes

this is my desert song
sung when my heart is so heavy
that it crushes my lungs
and with its deflate finally i see your name

but rip my tightly woven threads
and gently untangle my knotted hair
the wind has blown across the dust of my thoughts
please sweep me up and wash me whole

perhaps whats been dried will taste sweeter and longer
brighter vibrations with growing explosions
the victory sweeter and my strength grown softer
maybe when your water runs

again i will grow green
and i will be clean
under your tree
thorns will turn back to dark lashes again

this is my song in the desert
as i search for streams inside my soul
drain me of the dust inside
and cup a single drop into my side

this is my secret song, please
teach me to be whole
loud and clear with silenced fear
my unsung song will scream through

and in you i will hear my soul again.

Nearing the shoal
in my brittle craft,

I notice a hole,
   Near the waterline, aft.

I continue rowing,
  as the rocks get nearer.

I feel the current flowing.
  It's all becoming clearer.

Life is an ebb and flow.
  Our vessel is adrift.

South winds come and go.
  Our positions shift.

When I was
seven years old
I crept down our stairs
in the dark
it was just about midnight
on Christmas Eve
and I
wanted to catch Santa Claus
as he put presents
under our tree

When I was
fifteen years old
I laid on his bed
in the dark
it was in the evening
during the summer
and I
nervously waited for him
to shove his *****
inside of me

I hid
near the fireplace
anxiously awaiting an arrival
hands clenched into tight fists
giddy with anticipation
waiting in the dark

I spread
open my legs
feeling pressured and defeated
the TV blared so that
his mom wouldn't hear
my hands clenched into tight fists
I didn't want to touch him
but I
waited in the dark

I didn't see Santa Claus
instead
it was my parents
shoveling presents under
our tree
my verbal exclamation of shock
and betrayal
led to them disciplining me
for sneaking around
in the dark

I didn't look at him
instead
my eyes wandered around
his room
gazing at the guitars and
posters and
the closet and
even the TV
he ******* and
left me there, cold
in the dark

At school,
I told all of my friends
that Santa Claus wasn't real
I wanted everyone to know
the counselor pulled me aside
and said that it wasn't fair
for me to take this
from the other kids
it wasn't right
it wasn't my place
"Let them stay innocent
a little while longer."

I didn't want anyone to know
when I lost
my virginity
tears bubbling at my waterline,
I looked at myself
in disgust
It wasn't fair.
It wasn't right.
It wasn't his place.
Except there was no counselor
for me to speak to
only the sound
of water droplets
falling
as I cried in the shower

I thought that
I lost my innocence
when I found out
that Santa Claus wasn't
real.

But
this IS real
and hurts
so
much
more.

i don't mind the precision of such quests of investigation, i hardly think you constantly think to keep scientific facts afloat, for me thinking and scientific factual itemisation is like an iceberg, the former above water, the latter beneath the water... snorkelling beneath the water will not change your thinking as such, the upper part seen will still remain the same sized self that you are, readied for the new experience and the closing of all scientific books... you're hardly the ghost thought of libraries, you're the living body among cookbooks and bars; the iceberg's torso and other limbs will remain beneath water, encountered by medical students - if i were you i'd care for the titanic about to hit that head of yours bopping above the waterline, much smaller and smaller even still, while shrinking with all those theories concerning a single sound so italicised as the ego for grandeur of "theories", how about sesame street alphabetical arithmetic? if only the verse, an ***** of kindness in your head where knowledge of chemotherapy actually is in someone else - under the grand curtain of life's theatre... selfish ******* selling crap and islam; what? he came from the merchant class... what's he selling me? i didn't even buy a crucifix or an icon of a saint from the tourist shop in the ******* vatican!*

slavic eyes are reminiscent
of the mongol conquests
and reintegration via copulation
with the germans.

Shapes in the landscape and kisses left on window panes ,
stains on the bed sheets and all of these meet in the end.
Most of the time
I live far below the waterline where the air is strung out in bubbling lungs,occasionally climbing the rungs to the surface.
I have seen all that I need and fed lightly on greed,watched the passing of wars, saw raw hatred and love cooked in the hearts of desire.
I now have the tranquility of being deep undersea,the wall of the artery is built within me and my home.
And even deeper where the sleeping dogs lie there is a light that dances,flashing glances I see that the light also sees me which is something I strive for,something to stay alive for.
But the ocean is a turbulent place for the man with no face and the waves conspire to put out the fire that burns,each wave takes it in turns to pummel and pound the watery ground where I stand,not knowing that I am the rock that this man stands upon,we are one and the same,
I am the kiss that smudges,the stain that refuses to budge,the shape that you see,the blood that flows hotly through the heat of the artery.
I am the heart in me,I beat against time and time beats inside me,under the sea
it's all it can be
I expect no more than that.

"Southern Cross"  
by Crosby, Stills & Nash 1977


Got out of town on a boat goin' to Southern islands
Sailing a reach before a followin' sea
She was makin' for the trades on the outside
And the downhill run to Papeete

Off the wind on this heading lie the Marquesas
We got eighty feet of the waterline nicely making way
In a noisy bar in Avalon I tried to call you
But on a midnight watch I realized why twice you ran away

Think about
Think about how many times I have fallen
Spirits are using me larger voices callin'
What Heaven brought you and me cannot be forgotten

(Around the world) I have been around the world
(Lookin') Lookin' for that woman girl
(Who knows she knows) Who knows love can endure
And you know it will

When you see the Southern Cross for the first time
You understand now why you came this way
'Cause the truth you might be runnin' from is so small
But it's as big as the promise, the promise of a comin' day

So I'm sailing for tomorrow my dreams are a dyin'
And my love is an anchor tied to you tied with a silver chain
I have my ship and all her flags are a' flyin'
She is all that I have left and music is her name

Think about
Think about how many times I have fallen
Spirits are using me larger voices callin'
What Heaven brought you and me cannot be forgotten

(I've been around the world) I have been around the world
(Lookin') Lookin' for that woman girl
Who knows love can endure
And you know it will, and you know it will yes

Oooh ...

So we cheated and we lied and we tested
And we never failed to fail it was the easiest thing to do
You will survive being bested
Somebody fine will come along make me forget about loving you
At the southern cross

Skimming and scanning
the grammar of the riverbank’s
brown leaf, new shoot syntax
a bold type wren,
like the old bouncing ball of singalongs,
led my eye to read the waterline
and yet I still couldn’t discern
if smiles or tears were written
while the branch tips still scribed

My friend signed on to a coastal ship
His name, John Escobar,
He said, for only a week long trip
On the Steamship Southern Star.
While I worked out of the office of
The Southern Shipping Line,
To keep in touch with our fleet of ships,
But the Southern Star was mine.

They said that ship was a special case
It was fitted out so well,
They joked of equipment so refined
It could sail clear through to hell.
I’d noticed bulges down on the hull
But under the waterline,
They told me to keep an eye on it
When they said that it was mine.

It sailed on out of Ascension Bay
When the tide was running high,
The motor gave out a whisper like
The sound of a woman’s sigh,
It wasn’t supposed to leave the coast
But it went far out to sea,
And kept in touch with the dit-dit-dit
Of John on the morse code key.

He tapped a message out every hour
And I let him know I knew,
The ship was sailing way off its course
And lost to the coastal view,
He said the Captain was acting strange
He was locked up by the wheel,
That all the maps had been rearranged
And that something wasn’t real.

At midnight there was a message came
To me in a darkened room,
It said, ‘I don’t know what’s going on
But we just sailed past the Moon.’
I sent, ‘Just lay off the Bourbon, John,
If this is John Escobar,’
And he replied that the Captain died,
‘And I don’t know where we are.’

He sent more messages on the hour
And they seemed to grow apace,
By midday out on the second day,
‘We’re somewhere in outer space.’
I didn’t know if he’d gone berserk
But we’d lost the Southern Star,
It disappeared, and the thing was weird,
When I lost John Escobar.

The messages gradually petered out
So I don’t know if he lied,
He said some things about Saturn’s rings
And then the battery died.
I lost my job at the shipping line
For they put it down to me,
They said, ‘your ship was the Southern Star,
And you’ve lost the thing at sea.’

David Lewis Paget

Rain falls in sheets for weeks,
ceiling springs a leak;
from the weeping breach
the waterline soon creeps,
stream flooding in furious
flurry of worries, deep.
Innumerable leagues beneath,
unfathomable meters and feet steep;
wrapped in the blackest and bleakest grief
wreathing my neck, I can no longer breathe.
Stifled, I can plea and scream,
but this abysmal void eats me
like a parasite, a thieving leech
suffocating, siphoning my speech,
bleeding my body weak
until all that’s left in this sea
are clothes to blow in undertow
like shredded leaves
and bones to be part of some unseen reef;
into the yawning depths of this sleep,
death swallowing every secret to keep-
I close my eyes and hold my breath for relief.

Over the edge beyond the waterline
Where sea and sky are wielded by colour,
Beyond our sights into the vacant brine
Hangs stars dull shined unmarked by our scholar.  
Bright Sol, cast through the cold winter weather
Upon stone charts of soil come beckoning,
Around the hemisphere, boats in tether
Pierce cascading shimmering reckoning.
Guardian Helios guiding lightning
Through atmospheres familiar to our eyes,
Bring pantheons archaic, frightening
And make us venerate Gods by our lives.
Our anchors oscillate, locked by the pier,  
Our minds contorted, engulfed by the fear.

Scratching at the bottom of the barrel just to find
any scraps that I can forage to maintain my peace of mind.
Eliminating anything that’s not a basic need
As my assets liquefy with such depressing speed.
Just to make it through today is all that I can ask,
but I doubt my bank account is equal to the task.
Struggling to hold the line until my ship comes in
as the waterline keeps rising and the air is getting thin.

Don't you ever threaten me
with a good time.
     I'll show you I'm the favored horse
     4 seconds from the finish line.
Let's see how long it takes me
to upend my life.
     It's been a fun night
     but I am just about to freeze inside.

It's the Fall
          and the way years go
Or it's me; just me
hanging promises from ropes
from this living room ceiling.
          in the dark
searching eyes half-closed around me.

I'm just M-80 careless. Short fuse
          about to blow
all these hopes, all these plans
across this carpet, out these windows.

Small man of stained glass
ribbon feet, slashed hands.
Favored horse on toxic lawn,
grazing glue shop grass.

Fall of 2012.
Cold wind, early snow
blowing in from the North
and getting deep and I know
I'm getting buried here.
I'll never see the Sun again.
And I have made my icy bed,
so let me sleep a hundred years.

Don't you ever threaten me
with a good time.
     I'll show you I'm the favored horse
     4 seconds from the finish line.
The winds have started howling
and the waterline's high,
     but I've made my bed on bags of sand
     so let me wash out at low tide.

Haumoana by Mike Tolhurst

Black billed gulls wheeled across the ocean
tortilla flat beneath the August sky where underneath
the gravelled beach stretched on forever
and sunk out of sight below the disappearing sun.

Trapped pools of water lay captured above the waterline
reminding us of our dilemma
while the sea-breeze blew messages  
from your home in Switzerland which held our future in its grip.

We sat hand in hand and watched
the children play in the retreating warmth hiding  
the secret of our destiny from each other
but knowing all the same that it was there and real.

At least right then our love was unperturbed
as the stones skipped lightly across the cooling sea
allowing us the luxury of forgetting for an hour or two
that a Judge’s ruling might come and change our lives forever.

That day at Haumoana we discovered the depth of pain
but still the sea spirits spoke clearly to our hearts and
for a time at least all was lost  
as you and I and the children were together and free.

god my waterline's a ******* rim of that one red cup
i had to carry over to the other side of the bar,
maneuvering through a sea of people, all occupied
with thoughts and words and sloppy sentences,
breeze through, i try

don't ******* tip me over

there was a tenderness reserved for me in her. like an eager extra setting at a table, still empty, as she yearned for my presence with dinner time inching impossibly closer. it was like she was playing house and she was smushing our two dolls together. she’d smile at me to pass her the salt and add a wink, because she can. building our own little sinkhole world in the middle of her parents’ dining room. i couldn’t hear her mother ask me what i do for a living.

her family would be delightfully curious of the kind of person who could hold their precious girl’s love and attention. i’d tell them who i was in a nutshell, but she giggled at what was purposefully left unsaid.

they knew the her before me, and the her after me was beaming light to land planes. before, they said, maybe she could just power a small town. the spark in her eyes was threatening to jump the slight curb of her waterline and light everything aflame. she would laugh as we tried to put it out and she’d pull me away running like accidental arsonists.

afterwards, hand in hand, we’d sit on her back patio and laugh a belly laugh. nothing was really funny, just life was electric and it made a sound.