long goodbye

where are you today?

where you are is the one thing

i love & cannot know

 

it always recedes

the memory of the last

time i saw your face

 

a great many things

were taking place on the day

that you disappeared

 

sliding out to sea

on the swollen niagara

with narrowed channels

 

our precious love affair--

what was it but a tempest

in a cracked teapot?

 

but some storms remain

potent as glittering trash fire

smoldering inside

filled with regret like

dirty straw in the stable

our combined horseshit

 

meanwhile up ahead

in the gathering shadow

the past waits for us