1
Orion is rising, and the air
is tearing the paradise ferns
to shreds. Nightbirds flick
the lighthouse eye like metal
filings. . . . Worse things
could happen. Just
in the sense we are this
or that, the slightest
trembling of the leaves.
Nothing is ever very
simple. But this morning
the windows seemed
smaller, and the horses
wore a blanket of ice
across their manes.
This morning, love, the local
hemlock did not call
you back from the bridge.
2
October has come with a wind
full of sand, and tall
waves that heave against
the harbor-pilings. Salt
traces speckle the tree
trunks like a million tiny
places of light, and in one
you are dozing on a lawn chair
in the sun, in a backyard
in Nogales, and all around you
the morning’s dew has just
turned to steam. There are no
hard feelings. While I stood
on the pier this evening,
a small fishing boat
sailed in loaded down
with ptomaine. The stench
reached up and enlarged
my heart. The wheeling gulls
had momentarily forgotten.
3
Perhaps it’s not too late.
The choke-blossoms are still
knotted in the hedgerows.
And this morning when I woke,
a southbound freighter
was lodged on the horizon:
the horizon was rose and gray,
and the spiralling smoke
uncoiled along it
like a party streamer …I
must have been thinking
of you. There was some work
to do, and the tufts
of mist were burning off
the cowpond. This morning
I lay awake a long time
before I sat up in bed,
but with the sun so full
on that white ship, and
those reluctant blossoms,
my patience was already
wearing thin.
Leave a Reply