Our Close Distance

When will I come home
And see that lamp in
Your flickering room?

What will you do, home
From the war? Sunlight
And summer ore, or
Bus stop and creeping
Mourning through the night before?

What will you do,
Bandaged in your skin?

I will drink lampwax
And leave terracotta dust,
My faith and wonder withering in
Shadows on couches and grass arenas.
Until a semblance of my substance
Emerges, resembling enough,
Just enough encaustic dust,
So you may trust your memory,
Unlock the door, and let me in
from this close distance.

Orpheus After the War, v2

Orpheus after the War
was a thought upon the Beach,
A veteran with a dispense and a reach
In to your dress, love is gone.
If there were no war,
Milk would drift down your sorrow,
Lifted from skin graft
And inhaled
Under the dandelion sky.

Our early March was
Evergreen coated in snowflakes,
aching backwards
And arcing sideways,
You moved like glue
On a window screen.

Where can I go now
But to the memory of
Driftwood hands stained
In this comfort of ink?

Goddess, in a psalm kennel of adrenalin.

Water foam shoreline
Inhales the roots of wood,
Your arms,
A corpse among
Vibrations: the sound of the ocean.
Lonely din and hum
of memory,
Cold in a crowded waterfront.
Blackbird sky, gasoline eyes,
A city of crowds
And magnetic density,
A shelter for warmth tonight,
soup made of hot dogs
and leftovers.
Homeless and waiting
for Thanksgiving kindness.