In Another Life

There is nothing but the rustle of husks
in the cornfield today - empty stalks stripped bare
by the machinery and melancholy of man.

Whiskied whispers are the call of the black bird
pessimistic parasites with voices too hoarse to comprehend,
and so I cease to listen - ignore your gravelled song
as the pebbles raise the level in your cup.

Instead I drink sweet tea in the shade and dream.
I wait for sundown and thunder,
and content myself with thoughts of the sea.

Deconstruction

I steel myself with beams of moonlight
that no longer skim metallic in base-relief
on the bark of the lover-tree.

Useless, they fall with a clamor
into shade a decade old.
This is a place marked indelibly

by the crossing of lovers where dust hides
how you made me envy my name on your lips.

The Nile

It seems my eyes are rivers,

endlessand sun swept.

Here -

impossibly pure and banked by sand,
is haven.

Limbs float, tentatively tied

to trunks deserted to new generations.
Half hidden, I am the crocodile.

Yet, insifted silt
submerged, I am painted
a disarming shade of jade.