I follow the pale, silken river
of your outstretched leg
from the river mouth, where
your painted toes glittered
...
I've given up poetry
no more pulled faces, long
as autumn grey shadows,
...
Silver leaves beneath the water
lay layered and unmoving
as though painted on the stream bed
discarded love letters, inkless
...
These last leaves between us, Mother
falling from our old family tree
your last few clinging in your winter
mine, yet coloured in my autumn days
...
when she wears the long blue shirt
she is a lost ocean I wish to name
hypnotic fabric wave over wave
white buttons mother-of-pearl
...
Nestled there beneath her heart
listening to the waves crashing
with futility upon the curve
of her ribs, the sturdy piles
...
I have bared myself
a black wind blows
the night snow falls
falling flakes touch
...
We've lost the accommodating grin
Of a summer morning, the soft, derisive jeers
For we Anglers, our flies and our waders
With shoes wet with the morning dew
...
Let me rise, like a fallen seed unnoticed
in the leaf-littered green of her eyes
slowly unfolding there, unseen but sensed
living in the light of a gaze sent elsewhere
...
This woman's trust is a river running
a word pledged, instantly swept away
the water was black like her hair, her
overripe body a corpse on the bank
...