I've Seen Way Too Often

Notice how she pulls herself along without seeming to imagine any of it's her own doing?

The sunken stone-squashed sky lets go of itself ever so softly,

The long brown ribbons of water spinning in twists  

From behind her like elongated fluted out swimmers. She won't look up for

Looking down again. Does she not float? Ah yes, yes she does, and so gracefully.

For all the world I say she is pulling everything around her

Into her sad, forsaken eyes, her bent but not yet breaking open top to bottom hanging neck, her wounded sullen

Forehead, silent as a hurricane in a canning jar. If there

Are stars they remain stuck below in piles of thick groping grasses.

She wants to be dragging this tiny,

Dead dream behind her like a peeling and plastic fish toy. If you should spot her feet  then you too

Would see that they are only little red

Leaves stuck to her legs.  Instead our poet will be having none

Of this sorry nonsense; soon as he can he dreams up something stirring in the wake all anew,

See how gently now he blows open

Her feathered, gaping wounds? There,there that's so much better, he barely

Sings her real given name out loud, then kisses out a gliding twin bubble in which to

Ripple along with her;she traces but cannot actually

Outrun her own reflection. She's waiting around

Now as new light spreads itself all around her daily sorrows

Like a freshly applied Picasso. And up, up she'll

Take to the hour's edges at last. The dutiful wind breaks down the torn background,

Furiously filling in what's left

With tree, with cloud, offering nothing but sweetest grapes.   

05-11-05—01-28-11