SECRET ADMIRER
I know a child who prays nights
to the sun of beauty
so fish will swim in a stream
filled with light.
Hollow masks: air through eye sockets.
We are afraid to look.
This light: the crisp edges of the sand dunes
spend little time shaving stars
from the night sky.
He proposed, I'll keep your books
until you're eighty before I return them.
Lately, I've been receiving anonymous postcards
filled with cryptic messages:
this poetry by which we live.
(Most nights I sleep alone.)
Last rainstorm, the Alta Mira
almost slid back into the sea.
Close your eyes. Listen to the rain
on my roof.
The cat's voracious yawn
disturbs the air as you turn.
My car breaks down
the third time this month.
You ask me just what I plan to do
And tell me about the babies
you want to have before its too late.
We both sleep alone.
In the hot tub, we drink your first wine
and sing love songs in the downpour.
A neighbor throws both of his shoes.
How many times do we torture ourselves
before we realize we've had enough?
Use commas before.
use commas after.
Use commas to separate.
After a word separate
this language.
Alienation—there is enough reason
to be frightened. Turn down the music.
I'll try to speak more softly
and not sing when you do.
Another postcard arrives unsigned.
Birds fly together. Don't they know
the sky is an arena for thought?
These tiny competitions between us.
Another wedge driven home.
Bird wings. Clipped feathers:
At night thin men imagine golden birds
flying across the sky.
The sky is filled with blackbirds
obliterating the stars.
The window is open.
An indecipherable melody
rides the nightair on tiny hooves.
These words fly softly west,
away from the dawn birds.
Loosened from the lassos of the sun
we are small unchartered islands
rising
and sinking
at will.
4/ 83
