Dream Long Dead

It is the chain around your wrist

It is the way

a wedding ring resembles

an old barn

that leans into the wind

its edifice cracked, chipped,

foundation built

of tarot cards, windows

covered with tarpaper

It is the way words

tunnel beneath in fertile earth

take root

poke through the floor

It is the phrase “life sentence”

It is the convict who escapes

the island prison

the butterfly with torn wings

It is the rope, frayed

in an endless game of tug-of-war

to pull too hard would snap it

It is the way the old barn crumbles

and the way the tree springs forth

It is the shattered chain behind you on the floor

Pass

You unclasped my watch,

laid it on the nightstand.

“You don't need this,” you told me.

“We have the whole weekend

before us.”

What reason would make clear

time again confounds;

your copper skin against mine,

the play of fingers over flesh,

the endless minutes and hours

that pass in seconds.

When it came time to sleep,

you kissed the bare

strip of flesh uncovered

by the watch, closed your hand

around it.

Hadrian’s Folly

I wrote a poem for you

months ago, never showed you,

then went off to do some

great work to impress you. I built

this wall. Must have messed up

the blueprints, though. It was

supposed to stretch from Chardon

to Golgotha, ten feet high

and crenellated for defense

against flocks of hungry buzzards.

Instead, it moves, shifts

with every step I take,

stays between us like the ghost

of words unshown, unsaid.