She looked bored, as always
For there was the whole wearying business
of an afternoon and an evening
still to be lived through. The length
of main street was the length of the town, and
the length of our leash. We were stuck with yoyos,
and remote-control cars, and marbles. Pardon
the alliteration, but Caroline collected cat's eyes.
I told her that her eyes would make a beautiful
marble, and she laughed at me, and I wished
I had died.
Poets
some will win fame, others will be dead
and here instead
of thinking how I can get a job and earn a dollar,
I sit down, uncertain, and begin
one of the many poems
too much of my life is being sucked into—
A few thousand days ago
I leave my parents on the beach
and head up through the dunes.
Lights of the holiday shacks burst on the hill.
Yuppie silhouettes are having a good time on the balconies.
There is wind. Enough
to kick up the voices and sand.
I hear a cry, home in on it, and fall
to the lip of a bearded dune. Down in the hollow
of the sand I see bodies. They yowl
on the face of an incline
where the sand is thin,
wind-smooth, and a backdrop
to their shadow-puppetry.
