boats an alphabet in the canal something painted in our name a few prostitutes @3who?@1 I thought mannequins at first knees bent horses working the streets steamed like a night bath or a poem about smoke moon and icicles or a photograph some with your fear giving way to color have faded as when you said there's nothing like the truth to open the evening we have separate lives even turned toward you let me see behind you the raised slips of the waves . far from home with its small 'm' one could rest on like a loveseat the endless water that surfaces from below land disappearing and being reclaimed the tiny music of ships in bottles what Braque calls the fortuitous all of us versions virgins loosening and losing to the thirst of the salt like an island in my flesh I remembered being shoved into a lake saying @3gallop gallop@1 and slapping my heart the same that thanks the sides of cows in this dairy region a distant part of me catches on the milky stars the ritual carving of the blond heads of cheese your homeland for the first time surrounded by ideas Hart Crane accompanying himself with shipbells some on the other side of this world . as we took the curve north across a few bridges a narrow slat separated a village on stilts from the sea bicycles slept openly signs disclaimed about the morning sale of truck-sized wheels of edam and gouda out of place for a time like evening in white-face and seventeenth century dress a couple huddled and trained to the edge as if they were the foreigners as if there were someone I could trust to say these things for me and we were the secrets of families a pack of dogs out God help me as I have always wanted to imagine the dark green lining of the moon once we got it in sight . it's only paper-folding for beginners the season shuffles its coarse hairs and wire Dubuffets sprawl outdoors the pond a plastic reflection and shade I test my head on the head of a Buddha you focus and kneel our faces in the tulip fields in our cups in the restaurant thick with lipstick and rouge a few Van Goghs we'd never seen his unfinished fit of blue and azure his hospital the simple balconies covering with snow the urge to build peace out of time so what if I'm one figure being woven on a loom brushing the blouse of the weaver the desire to take you the humor of mobiles the utter fairness of glass this music of the rocks barely all my life as the first star is scout into the night like beads across the abacus stretched out even willing | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...LOVE IN THE VALLEY (VERSION A) by GEORGE MEREDITH CLIO, NINE ECLOGUES IN HONOUR OF NINE VIRTUES: 9. OF HUMILITY by WILLIAM BASSE SPRING IN THE ALPS by MATHILDE BLIND IMPROMPTU ON AN INNKEEPER NAMED BACON by ROBERT BURNS |