There we’re waiting,

inky shallows.

There we’re searching

skies for firecracker light.

Where I’m shoeless,

cold feet, white-whisked.

Where you’re shirtless -

glossy underbelly of a pike.

Shaking snails out

of your pockets.

Shaking rain-chilled

lashes dark with mud and mire.

Are we digging

mollusked-heartache?

Are we holding

onto fragile friends forever?

My hands combing

sand for skip-stones.

Your hands dripping,

picking for me white nymphaea.

Found it shining

in the water.

Found it dancing,

the stars haloed around our heads.

It was Spring - no, Winter.

I think someone said it was afternoon.

It was late morning and

the clouds were slow but high and gray

on Huntington and

You ran to me,

You gathered me in your arms

like a child. You spun me in circles.

Around and around - the years went by.

The sun was blinding.

Were the leaves falling? It was nighttime and

I’d never seen you smile so wide.

I would swim my body skyways

Tangled up in foamy white lace

Sidestroke, backstroke, breaststroke

Just to paint with you

I would drink up soft lakewater

Even swing your tiny daughter

Round and round in circles

Just to live with you

I would let you crack me open

Shiny mussel, light and floating

I still wear the pearls your

Mother gave to you

July forever, clear skies forever

Just you and I, before the war -

Would you sing to me alone again

in summer, at my blue front door?

One endless day

Red brick and river rock

Our shade-shrouded morning

Two groaning oars

Gliding over glittered lilies

Blazing noon sky eye-shine

Three young girls

Braids dripping lakewater

As a red sun sinks

Do me the honor

Of standing silently

With your ear bent low,

Towards the dirt.

Don’t you hear the earth’s sigh

In the beating of dragonfly wings,

In the soft tumble of bumblebees

atop a blousy blossom?

Why shouldn’t we be still?

Where are we headed, and why?

A riverside whaler

Cries two if by sea

Though I am trapped alone

Between liberty and water

A beautiful turret

Is no strong match for

A siege of ships

Beneath the cover of nightfall

A soundless seasickness

Washes over me

A whalebone caught

Between my mouth and lungs

A harpoon pierces

All that is beautiful

I float away

Beneath the waves

All I am is gone from me

A sunken wharf or

A whale without a song

Faraway, this river leads to open ocean

Faraway, my rendered oil burns as candlelight

In a small white room

At the top of the stairs

There is a view of a river.

The strength of her current is deceptive,

for she merely drifts in the direction

the curving landscape suggests.

She bends her will,

concedes to the earth’s twists and turns.

She is water without wetness.

She is a brain without a body.

She cries in waves as boats

carve along her surface.

She has no voice.

there's a place

a blue and quiet place 

that could shake you wide open

and make your teeth feel loose

there's a sound

like footsteps or a heartbeat

that might send you kicking tulips 

and bend you like a willow

there's a rock

sunk deep inside your belly

that sometimes sets you swimming

in those rivers that run northward

and it moves you to sing

oh, my shining antimony

and it moves you to cry

oh, my shining antimony 

sunshine and screendoors 

sweeping

salt-skinned 

sweet as sugared pansies

cold cucumber kisses

calling 

clairvoyant

crystalline and cresting waves

windchimes and whippoorwills

whispering

weightless

wide and westward light

honeysuckle harmonies

hallowing

heavenward

holy and hushed as home

in the cathedral for outlaws

the buckle of your bible belt sings

silver as birch leaves before the flood

and just as loudly

and where i am 

white-knuckled as the paper bark

waiting on the thunder-smacks

and the i love yous

and where you are

the calm before the storm 

blue-gray books of revelations 

in your ears and in your eyes--

may our mouths move 

in the shape of novenas;

may our dirt-covered feet 

point eastward