At night beneath the sheet my scattered legs  
turn into yours. Dream’s a moth with singeing wings.

Hearts are caves that flood. You boil the water  
to nothing, forget the pen in the drawer  

of spoons, nag, Where is time? When does it return?
I’m sick of raking inconsolable beaches.    

I drive; you run the lights, almost killing me.  
Concerts, movies, you have to cry in public  

while I sit damp, red. Or, worse, you wake me:  
Look: the cracks conspiring with the darkness.  

He had to be your father drifting out.  
We’d jump, call him from a dune. Your father  

pretending not to hear. You hoarder of  
lost words, midwife to my empty stares.  Words

are socks on hands. Love’s the cypress that stands
in the swamp, waving gray limb-loads of moss.

No use seeking you. Walking this hall, like a ghost  
you walk some other. I leave you notes crammed  

in the margins and live for the reply  
from your vast, dim, disappearing room somewhere  

near mine: A lovely leaking ceiling is
the most a life can be; soul that shanty

on the sand where the Gulf sometimes comes up
to spit and chew
             room I’ve glimpsed in dreams.