SMALL CONSOLATION
1
When hours stood for nothing—
not even this
unholy mess, I
imagined your savior dropped
a foot on my chest.
And compressing it, me, he
looked long at my love.
Still, perfectly quiet and so
dreamy, sleeping, one foot away.
2
Soon I will swim out—
and bob in his laughter
as it dips down the middle, a
gulley or furrow, taking
me under, folding me over.
Strictly low-rent psychodrama.
Crickets and cicadas sing
hallelujah, their midnight
snakeoil serenade, each muscle
wrung out in minor accord, string
after string, ad infinitum.
3
I grow taciturn—
lone, left prone, a period
dripped on some immaculate timeline,
the dome king of hoods and goggles,
winged and belted, beaked and bodiced,
I close the cage, I eat the seed.
Call me Ahab awaiting whitecaps,
Ozymandias unmanned, a widower
without means, a poor poetaster more
fit for selling real estate in the
swamplands of Florida.