RETURNING
Under the burned distraction of night
below my eyes and the uncertainty
of my shoeless steps
I imagine morning
embracing me like an empty bed
the reflection of a cigarette
reminding me I’ve missed the bus again
I pin my fate on the flame of a brief promise
written on the back of an IOU
long since expired
I picture the new suit
In a garden beneath a cloudy sky
the private shadows divorced and returned
among the smoke of turbulent grasses
and the beseeching gestures
of dexterous hands
striking up a match of conversation
between the bad music of applause
a dream fell through me like summer rain
I give the grey hair of my head to a hummingbird
who will use it to find his way
through the dark lonely crying of gulls
Sometimes I’ve held it
like a newborn child
My dreams too large to swallow
and its there waiting to break out
like revenge, revolution
or a memory walking back
from the end of what it has lost
with the bitter ink of prophecy
and the defiant singing of madmen
behind dark glasses reminding me of myself
I return to the grain of my own earth
lift my empty cup and begin humming
the untranslatable recipes
of dead stars and the moon
dancing through a cobweb
like a weightless island