Three Poems

'Don't Look Back, Lonesome Boy'

Slowly and patiently we have forgotten it all.
When we made the nails tremble in the headboard
And you rose up with a whisper, the gentle surf moaning.
Underneath the voices, a guitar sounded on the radio.
We believed (at least I believed) in the strength of our arms,
In the precise detail, proof against anything, of our faltering liquid memories,
In the absolute power of those poems I wrote
When I slid barefoot from bed - I scribbled them blindly,
While you were sleeping,
On any old paper, in a book.
There are so many beautiful, serious, urgent words that will stay forgotten.
I thought the only worthwhile writing was direct and shameless.

To love you,
While things were like this, while they stayed like this as you slept, naked,
And I had a scrap of paper, or the wall,
Or some blank corner of the planet;
...