Ice Wine

As the light withdraws, I concentrate
on summer, other days, warm memories,
distilling them into clusters of grapes
glistening with frost, like those dark globes,
intentionally left unharvested,

still clinging to the vines. I wonder if
it might be time to let the cold be cold,
and let that sweetness fill my heart also.
I’m no expert in hearts, but I feel
winter might work its magic on me, too.

The Ginkgo

Pages, pages

all around

my courtyard fall

without a sound.

 

Yet, full of sage

advice, this tree

might hold a book,

dog-eared, like me:

 

a paperback,

spine cracked and dry,

shedding leaves

and leaving sky.

How I See You

For Gavin

Today, I saw a hunk in a wife-beater in
a picture, posing, freshly inked. His purple
elephants, linked trunk to tail, still looked
a little painful, pink, raw and tender
in places. Who was he? He looked like you.

No, not Gavin Geoffrey, in the flesh,
undressing for success—another you.
The tuft of armpit there, against your wife-
beating white, didn’t arouse those elephants,
though it affected parts of me. Tonight,

before I went to bed, I looked through all
the photos I possessed of you—younger,
older, picking out my favorite. You
sit beside a gorgeous Grammatophyllum,
wearing a black hoodie and glasses.

You’ll think I am crazy, but I can read
through your lenses better than you—what
is written there around your eyes by Time—
the poetry of God or Fate—whatever
name we assign the genius with the pen.

That man is mine. Remove it all—the frames,
the hoodie, orchid, elephants, old
and new tattoos—there’s my Naked Poet:
all that you are, just as you appear.
The essential man. So essential to me.