I dreamed you came aboard
to commend me to the sea
and I dreamed you rode a horse

to your wedding sidesaddle
even though the only thing
you let between your legs

was the melancholy strings
of the cello, you with your instinct
for music and dangerous suitors

I still place to this day what is left
of the afternoon in care of your hands
kissed by so many strange men

whose names you can't remember
on the long nights we spend
together without sleeping

in the same bed alone we are
dreaming the dreams
we dream when all love is lost.

Some nights you still
cast your shadow like
dice, always coming up
snake eyes, and I dream
I am watching you stare
at the camp fire, the moon
parting your hair, high
in the mountains growing
silent and thirsty not saying
a word until a bird comes
from nowhere, and lighting  
on your wrist to drink from
your palm while you stroked
its throat; I could have sworn
your finger was on a trigger.

This unnatural light
like the last summer
before the last winter
sends the grackles
into the cedars
rattling their wings
in the evergreens
making a sound like Ishmael
casting his bones
on the deck of Ahab's ship.

She wants every poem
To be about her
She wants the foam
Of every wave
As the skintight
Dress of dusk;
Divine forces be her tailor
And every Olympian as
The servant-king
To every whim of hers