in my dream, your voice
becomes more and more distant, as if
you are trying to reach me somewhere else;
almost in the foreign language of the dead.
sometimes a wind comes down from the
bluest ridges and takes everything away with it.

i wish that summer were just now beginning,
not struggling so hard to end. the nights
drop over me like long black hair.
my heart is a balloon rising ponderously into the unknown.
i wish this poem could make sense, but only
love has ever made any sense to me, and

love is like a painting that deteriorates
before it is finished, it takes so long
to create.  you were like all my past sins--
imperfect, deeply wretched, the one salvation
i longed for; faith in a ruined church--
your windblown, impoverished love.

so far this poem makes no sense; has
no sensitivity.  the last of the season
is falling to pieces, drifting down as
all the trees let go. i run to the balcony but it
is an unfinished painting, empty,
cracked, and crumbling;

making half-finished shadows inside me