late in the season


waiting in a straight back, dining chair
pressed into service at the desk
not waiting for phone or door bell
or someone to finish something
waiting for my heart to become
less free form,
less painfully given or received back
more as one would expect
as if even at night, it pursues dominion
the way a lover pulls sateen blanket edges,
tugs over worn pillows,
nudges a little, thumps, rolls, nudges again –
as if, daylight divulges so much
that my heart refuses
to be seen at the dance

Pathetic Fallacy at the Cinema

It isn’t like in the movie where seabirds arc perfectly
higher and higher
and the beautiful actor with the rich baritone voice is carried
motionless from the surf:
his muscles rippled like the Pietà;
his drenched shirt a lullaby against his skin.
There is no omniscient narrator toasting another birthday.
There never is another birthday,
never a measurable way to hold the ruined sands of our hearts.
There is only a phone
screaming
at the dark of the morning