Lost Kids in a Bad World

Imagine black bears dancing. Imagine waking up knowing a new language but not what language it is. 

The sky is mostly gray, hints of rain and I wouldn't want to be a hot air balloon or in one. Through trees, the river, and on the far side of the river, a field in which half a dozen cows graze, possibly my real family.

I have a favorite apple high up in the apple tree - it's the softest red, almost a peach - and when it falls I know it will be lost forever. Marriage without wedding rings.

Stories without tellers? In a dream we talk about your poems for hours, then sleep together outside, not fucking but holding hands, lost kids in a bad world, true help-meets.

What's gin? I need Saturday, new ideas, a cleaner porch, fewer Christian icons, et cetera.

When just after the wedding we went to Greece, got lost in high hills outside Athens, before finding a back way to Sparta and your family. Across the river my ancestors laid down their swords and shields and looked to me for clues as to what to do with their hands.

The locus is a form of leverage, the lotus is the end of dreams. You and your whispers.

A fortunate child who does not recognize his fortune until well into adulthood is not a fortunate child. Balancing a jug of water.

Crickets on the barn floor. Jesus praying for me in the cave of a stranger's heart.

And the cave of your heart in the cave of my heart in the heart of the lily deep in the center of the last wild marigold. One is always star-gazing, one way or the other.