TRADING DISASTER FOR CRUMPETS AND TEA
(is something I only learned how do after you)


For you, my tall endangered one
I wrote
your name across the sky
with reckless blood
not breaking contact with
your storied eyes
And knocking on that driftwood heart relentlessly.

You did not let me in.

I watched wide-eyed
as you played
hop-scotch in the mine fields,
paddy-cakes with the devil;
you said to me, “I’m a survivor
and I’m dangerous.”
You were.

I watched wide-eyed
your vain attempts to plant the sky
in your backyard
with an ordinary spade;
the far-flung stars of Orion
as your seeds~

Who did I think you were?
(a god in simple street clothes?)

Yet I believed in you
Your dreams were vast
But vacuum-packed
unblossoming and fruitless, you lived with
deft disregard
of your own highest good,
and everything I thought of you as well.

I’m not pointing fingers
but you were the one
who carried hurricanes around
in your back pocket
lassoed them in when you
felt cooled or spent, you
were the one who walked
life’s curvatures
without looking up ahead

You balanced, tommyhawk,
the serrated edge
wondering at the bloodshed;

and you massacred my heart
without intent.

Each time I stepped outside my door
into your life, the landscape shifted;
then I’d be down, babe, for the count;
and while I regained my bearings, you’d
be a mile ahead
escorting the wind
without a plan.

You made of me
an isolated wandering star
blue with burning cold,
bright untouchable.

And now I must confess,
I would rather have walked
into a tea shop, babe
and ordered simple

crumpets and tea.