three rounds each, a gong for the lesser gods. attention, please, there will be grief now, from the loss of my love. this loss and those losses that came before and the loss we propose when we begin

again. listen to the precision of my pain, you keepers and providers of my life, give end to the texture of a straining i can no longer carry.

i've tried the breast pocket, the valise, the pallet loader and now it is time to put it down - into the sea; into the great home; gods, take it back.

as far as i see along the terrible sites of these guns, i will need this pain again. take it now, that i may find it among the circling rains, along the broad side of the wind. my love leaving has given me more than i have ever had. my heart, unbroken, goes to sea. attention, please, gods - there will now be unending grief, the endless loss of my love.

On Winter Coming

The clouds make this the safest Saturday so far this fall.
I’m wrapped up in a blue sweatshirt, and the chill’s just there,
a skin’s distance: in all my hair, where my nerves end,
I’m aware of some uncertain bristling and almost shiver –
green breaks up in the tree leaves and gold takes over
in the hunger for sunlight from a blood-let scarlet sunset.

These days require years of kaleidoscopic concentration,
and I mean seeing through colored fragments floating in oil,
spinning slowly new combinations before a piece of mirror:
More vitamin C; my boots; a breath of bay mist;
one night, no dreams; and another nothing but
waking in doubt, in sweat, in my double bed.

Separately, none of this is sensible, and that’s the point:
I glance at the constant watch face, a black obsidian
that gives back my eyes glassed over with the fear of freezing,
and I’m numbed enough by that fear to watch this memory
like a movie yellow and deliberately disappear.
It’s got me; it’s got you; a street set with storefronts
and marquee lights stressing our own mannequins.

What apology can I make? To be in your way, or part of it,
(another lovely dusk sky, another roadside flower stand,)
these screaming ruby dahlias are all I’ve ever wanted –
I’ll wade onto a baldly dramatic stage of your plans
and you’ll open me up again with your bare hands.