Published in Confluence Issue 13 

 

BALLAST

in Stingray Bay, half-

buried in sand

this shipwrecked ballast-stone

 

if I place my fingers here

in these indents of memory, I

feel the steel-shod strike of

 

chisel run up the stonemason’s

arm in some 1800s Dorset quarry

this shock-link spans the seas and years

 

unites us both in need for more

longtimeness, some solidness to leave behind

but there’s just this cornerstone

 

this beach, the ever-present

ocean and all those boxes of an

 unsorted life that will remain

 

in Stingray Bay, half-

buried in sand

this shipwrecked ballast-stone

 

if I place my fingers here

in these indents of memory, I

feel the steel-shod strike of

 

chisel run up the stonemason’s

arm in some 1800s Dorset quarry

this shock-link spans the seas and years

 

unites us both in need for more

longtimeness, some solidness to leave behind

but there’s just this cornerstone

 

this beach, the ever-present

ocean and all those boxes of an

 unsorted life that will remain

 

 

the taste of the wolf

with a furtive touch of lips by love wounded

a man will often kiss as if licking honey

I heard thunder when the fly hit the window

then the echo in the Amazon forests

 

a man will often kiss as if licking honey

the snake lurk behind fragrant flowers

was there an echo in the Amazon forest

the night that we first kissed?

 

does a snake lurk behind fragrant flowers

the air undulating with dragonflies

the night that we first kissed

when every sense was electrified?

 

the air undulated with dragonflies

like the taste in the mouth of the wolf

when every sense was electrified

land charged by wind and deceit

 

did you taste the mouth of the wolf

wash your hair in low-dwelling clouds

in land charged by wind and deceit

with just a furtive touch of lips wounded by love?