Shipwreck
The sky is a shipwreck today,
Ashen and lonely and quivering
Foam, its pale pallid eyes glazed
With staring stillness. I look into
Those petrified eyes
And I see
The sun, tucked somewhere behind the
Mist from the frothing sea, glinting
Like a grey pearl.
Sky, you are dressed in memories today,
Your wooden beams creak out wailings
And moss-encrusted echoes that look
Strangely like white birds,
Later you will drape yourself in
Histories and Could-Have-Beens
And Fantasies and Nows. Later you will
Wreck, once more,
On the distant shores
You painted yesterday.
Poppies
I loved the poppies too much
To fall asleep around them.
My purple feet tingled and
Sighed in the wet leaves,
I was like a fairy strolling in
A yellow peacoat under a garden
Of miniature umbrellas,
Silky scarlet domes
With beads of silver water.
They tasted like cherry dust
And looked like a child’s bright open eyes,
They swayed in place singing
Ancient songs I was born knowing.
How could I ever sleep through this,
This dew-glass universe, this scarlet
Tea party waltz keeping time with its
Own raspberry heart? How can I sleep,
When the stars burn this close to me?
Oh, I love the poppies too much
To be anything but alive around them.
A Walk to Town
The leaves whisper spidery somethings,
Soft and sad and serious,
And the town
Is a mile away.
The leaves quiver in the wind
Like sheets of hammered gold;
All along the path into the
Village they drip and ring, leaving
Ripples in the air. The leaves
Whisper, but I cannot tell if the sound
Is the plod of my footsteps
Or the echoes of my mind.
The leaves whisper spidery somethings,
Soft and sad and serious,
And the town
Is a mile away.