Reaching through night
I found you there
and your thoughts
your eyes
your dreams
opened before me
a harbor against
the waves
and the hordes
pressing in
while about us
on all sides fell
the flaming towers
and the very stars themselves

She possessed the keenest eye
I have ever known
and the pure
ability
to see what others would call
beauty
before even they could see it
and possessing that raw talent
made her the finest
photographer
I have ever
known
I mean, her photos hung everywhere about
that great hot city
we lived in
and her name was well known
in galleries of all
sorts
it was all I could do
to keep up with her
but I tried, and
once
somewhere in the flat
open
plainness
of eastern Montana, somewhere
between, I think,
Wolf Point and
Glasgow
she told me to stop
the car
so I did, and she got out
walking off into all that tall
bison-grazed and
yellow
grass
to shoot silent photos of an old building
and while her back was turned
I took her picture
but never told her

Pushing my soul dreams
through the Japanese curtain
of her will
her resistance her system
of beliefs
her best friend's diary
she shudders and papery
leaves fall where the apples
lay on yesterday's
cool autumn grass

Got big plans alright
gonna ***** myself up out there
just a long greasy smear
across the sidewalk of your heart
where'd that ****** come from
they'll ask
as I blur past
right outta nowhere
and you'll do your thing, smile,
walk along as if nothing at all
had just happened
and I'll wait for you
on the other side
while the others wonder

With paper bag hands
I try
desperately and with great
concentration
to calm
soothe
stroke and entrance
the fluttering bird
of your love

Dim light on tall trees
and slow movement of air
like breath softly exhaled
you next to me
in buttoned shirt and warm pants
afluff, still, and steaming warmly
like horses in winter
the slow tick tick tick
of life's clock on death's mantle
and it's always later
later
later
than you think

cringing shadow figures roll darkling ***** of rubber
in circles around me while i sit

perfectly

still

at my table, waiting
and hoping they won't notice me
especially the big one
in the purple vest
i saw his teeth in a yellow flash
when he snapped out at one of the others
a few minutes ago; they
fell in line again, resumed
the roll roll roll of *****
'round and 'round my table but
faster now

i don't know
how they got in
but i'll make a note to ask
when someone comes along