Love Lines

for those islands in the Aegean
whose harbors are too small
for commercial lines

our muffled phone & the through-
town train, tonight i
fuse them
in sleep as their rumble
fades, rhythmically, & another's
sound echoes, a ship's
stack, hooting
desultorily past
small hulled islands, each port a knothole
lapped shut

* * *

the water is tender, green, curls
softly innocent, a lazy noose in the sunlight
i loved you, i know
now, water swells
wood, lungs, i loved you, i go
past shallows to
sashaying algae to
prowling kelp, remote
inaccessible
as the harbor, no phone
or faith

* * *

love orbits
us, all night
long, your cock is an instrument
in my palm to gauge by, at breakfast you pour
the coffee, i hold
my tongue, what I keep from you
keeps
me from you, the ship
is fading, like sunlit frost, silver
gleams on our table, mugs shine
red as cranberries, blue as frostbite, i want
to hold
on, not back brave
morning's fierce tangibility-
tell you

* * *

still, by the dry light, i grow
edgy, bristle
defenses, a pine-
cone in fire

if i were a man, or you a woman, anything
would be easier than this: one man
you, me
one woman, lost
in the shrinking summer
our breakfast done