Notes toward the Fourth

I wore my mistakes like old shoes, taller
for them, keeping my feet apart from the sand.

in summer sun I read, “My soul is not at peace
with having lost her,” and my spine shivered
like a fish flexes, like lightning from the sea.


*         *         *          *         *


the watchmaker’s daughter wearing white and blue
paints a picture of the ocean in the course of a day
and the following day sets to again, blocking in
with revisions, never touched by a brush on
her immaculate camisole.  She says,


“Some stars are more dim...”
Dim, dim...dim...d-dim dim dim.

against mine, her voice dawning redly like a bell on a train.
the three of us share an idyll polygamy, for warmth,
amongst other things.  The color of blood is dark;
the world is the sand; we smear our names on every grain.


*        *        *         *         *


don’t go tharn, little rabbit,

here’s your stile,
here’s the bridge between your pastures.

the words of the bay while I let down on the sand:

this is the way it’s always been
  this is the way it’s always been
this is the way it’s always been,
  this is the way it’s always been.

the wind is a minted widow freshly keening;
I take my shirt off, rummaging in my confidence
like a chest of drawers for something or someone
to give to coldness, any thing besides my body kneeling shyly.


she’s gone, time slipping on like a worn gear.


*       *        *        *        *

under the depth between us and the stars,
I think we were made for this, rested, accelerated.

I am the man in this skin, a sandy-haired sea
creature, giving my water back to the ocean.

birds or angels on the scrim of every wave receding
sine out to the strongmen of the far away moon.


*        *        *        *        *  

a puppet Sam orates casually from the picture window,
pronouncing us criminals by the laws of this land,
a ten dollar bill run ten times through the wash,
gunning for aspirin scribed with veritas.


*           *          *          *          *


the sea says the bay sounds a lot like God.
to me it sounds like wet mouths
groping in the dark.

Water,     Jesus Christ

heaven is the mouth of a dog
with a throat full of stars.