Floating under only the dusk

This poem was written almost 5 years ago as a companion to "At the Graveyard".



Floating Under Only The Dusk In Bridgeport, Nebraska

For B.



I



To swim here is murder.

The lonely eddies, flowing silt

the quicksand of the sandhills.



And when you sink, nose stopped

with mud, look up into the sun

drowned into brown, to night, to nothing-



II



The willows swap shadows, crickets

rolling in from the North.

There is only the dusk

between us now.

Above me, your abandoned sandals,

more dust than leather,

grow into the grass.



III



You were not there when they found me

my chest slumped in folds, like a fault

after the last trembler.

I drifted down like the stone Indian

perched on the Missouri

And storms marched over my grave.



IV



The underground makes home for none, but you

burrowed out your stake.

You, the quiet sentry,

crouched in stale air

And giants roam the earth.



You are the stone at the end of the world.

Beyond movement, the sand

carves lines along your face,

biding time

before the final fall.



V



My flowers sewn into the soil

You stoop, three months

into the dirt, to kiss the stone

my day of birth.



I have died empty, never trying you.