constellations of spring
      held together by swift and string
dance me into ageless laughter
            like run to far, the distance to be won!

the petals are free now.
            handcupped in rainy day
            bright with beelit flight
and let us not as the deer and the fox
            be such friends of night

I am a figurine in just figments
  as would a silent storm, or
  a disheartened lily-white fellow
  stranded in the rose, an airless frame

we sing at night now
   brazen or steadfast or just
           plainly still flight
(frayed) our hours are meager
              and goner, and goner.

This - your ghost - unshadowed in Times Square
as if its walklessness inevitable
performs to streetdrummers, to share
their wafting of disheartened, dull
melodies and ballads unsung.  what noisy
cats are we, what uncalm stirs in us
to forget the task, to slight the busy
after the solitude and lull of the dusk.
and here, from open window, This is watched
like religion, as if I too, suffer the songs
beautiful and remedial, but as often dodged
as the preachers of numb gospel, familiar along
sad, ruined streets.  then, in midst of waking hour
This - your ghost - lowers into deep corners to cower.

[ The Salt River Review ]
[ Contents ] [ Contributors ]