I bake
Birds nest
And Mahler whistles

June beckons me, tempting me.
As if I too could learn the secret recipes of beekeepers
and drink the blood of summer.

And the dust hung in the air
like a whispered word through a keyhole.

That's the difference between us. I resist tragedy and she accepts it.

And sometimes I lift the glass to my ear to hear the roar

the distant sound of home

I've been feeling rather banal and stupid

reading D. H. Lawrence

with the kettle and tea

My hound at my feet with his bones in a row

Because wanderlust is just another name for loneliness

and wilderness is another name for snow

The floors were dirty. And the scent of broiled fish remained in the air.

“Are you happy?” he asked. “Yes,” she replied. “I’m home.”

I love the sound of company –
running water,
conversation held over breakfast,
“Kansas City by nightfall.”

the dead, not lost

This is where we are
two hours behind schedule
and without our morning coffee

A trip home – by the sea.
Late morning hours spent reading, talking, waiting for the toast.
And I can’t help thinking
I should know more Thoreau.

He pulled his collar up against the cold. A few buttons and a satellite is all it took to hear her say, “I went to the beach today and wrote your name in the sand.”

a New Austerity
flying into the east
to spend my days in ordinary time

Sleeping
With the hound
On the floor
Next to the fire

Hearts of space

She pulled herself out of bed, careful with her aching head, moving slowly around the clothes on the floor.

She leaned on the bathroom sink, poured herself another drink, here’s to another night on the road.

She tried to avoid her reflection in the mirror. “It’s not magic,” she had told him. “It’s called physics.” She tied her greasy hair into a knot at the base of her neck. It was going to be a long night.

She yawned slightly and pulled up the collar on her sweater and buttoned it quickly, missing a few holes, so that it hung at an angle. “We’re not mercenaries,” he said. “I don’t think they’re paying,” she replied.

These shores once stood
On an endless horizon.
Of ships and men, the currents do tell
How they rolled and they plundered
Every wood
And soul they could find.

Sunday afternoons are so long and Monday is not a guarantee.

So much for the movies

So little for the books,

When you said ‘okay’ and I told a lie.

This was one last effort to delay the battle ahead. He could do it easily, but she could not forget. “A year, fifteen months at most,” he said. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll have the hound for company.” He put his dirty ball cap on while she looked for her shoes. “I think I’d like a grandfather’s clock,” he said. “I know,” she said. “You’ve always been obsessed with time.”

Strike a match and watch it fade a-way.

Leave. Go.

My hold-ing hand.

For the life of me I can’t remember why I bother
To hold the phone
When the line is long dead.
And Father Time is a tyrant
With his hand on my shoulder
And like the winds of September,
He goes stealing away.