sighs along the north fork (oh, shenandoah)
the river up home
late afternoon in november
has no fishermen
to keep it company;
a new sign
by the old make-out lot
says you can’t
fish anymore. SUVs
and little old pickups
crush the causeway one
cement instant
at a time, indifferent.
the same cement
where i used to catch the sun
in a tank and cutoffs,
dreaming out loud at
the rushing currents
where you used to swim,
slipping over the
tricky sun-hidden bottoms.
sign says you can’t
swim there anymore, either.
even for november, it’s still;
not cold enough for frost, but
the leaves long gone,
husks of trees no
longer any seclusion
for a lone drunk
or a couple thinking
they were in love;
we’re the only ones here now,
the river and me,
both too old and careworn
for cutoffs or pretenses.
insight
squinting at the
clock in the kitchen as it winds slowly
toward the end of an hour or an epoch,
i sit at my window, look away:
at the ground below bogged down
in indecision, up brooding at gray skies,
out at the flowers i planted
with so much care, coaxed in
by another season, another lifetime;
now they too are grown
wild and inaesthetic, incomprehensible.
isn’t this always how it ends?
distance
one day you wake
from no nightmare in particular
up to the truth
of how far your reality
is from what you
dreamed it.
it’s like you’re frozen or
drowned and no
one gives a damn;
time turns his back and
walks on without you,
air presses down
on sloped shoulders as
if to bury the husk
remaining and the
mirror whispers
in laughter
“now you know
how I feel.”
metaphor
yesterday is burning.
not cleanly, but like an oil fire with
lots of dark smoke and haze;
it’s not clear anymore what
lies on the other side.
i should try and save
what i can, i suppose,
sort through mouldering triumphs
before all is ash, but
the acridness singes the hairs inside my nose,
makes me want to squint my eyes and duck my head,
forget it ever happened.
