Just as music’s bird from paradise
is caged in a piano’s lacquered keys,
our words, memory flowing toward a form
then settling in autumn ice.
Here, walking among foam-thrashed leaves,
the summer’s spent wine making us forlorn
while house lights kindle along shore roads
and a gull’s wing cuts the soft melon
of a rising moon, I won’t concede
the territories your strong forehead,
your silk-wrapped hips have won
in me by giving them a name, for fear
the casual stab of my pen’s art
will land too heavy, and graze the heart.
Singing Beach
