once i loved a man like the smoke
you make when you rub two stones together--
smoke out of nothing.
he kept time using stones.
i made love,
he made pain with a stone in each hand.
i was a glutton for language,
he for silence.
it was common practice for me to place
fantastical persons in actual situations;
and for him to put actual persons in fantastical situations.
poetry and prayer have finite speeds,
there is no instant photo of eternity.
we see the moon as it used to be
a second ago--and stars? don't even go there.
ERGO
we see different possible lives around us
as different events in space time.
think about that.
i dreamed the dream of love's resurrection
arriving in my mailbox wrapped in my own fiction
and covered in butterflies
like a valentine.
the dream says don't be fooled by pretty and fantastical images!
but in matters of dreams, good sense is tragically absent.
if you and i were underneath the covers, it would still end the same.
the white bird flying by the window would be the symbol of hope
but also of flight.
white flowers while wearing a white dress would signify a sigh
and a shiver, the shaking down of spring petals.
your name, held in my mouth
will always mean whatever the dream wants it to mean
for the duration of the actual fantasy.
anticipation and promise grope each other
until reality arrives.
SO NOW
i go my own way
on a path of sand
that shifts like an hourglass.
i hear my father calling me home.
but when i get home, he will gently deny that he was calling me,
saying that i heard him out of some kind of loss
and longing,
out of some kind of homesickness
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