What we built, at the kiln that won’t be stilled,
did not set well:

The old veil of desire,
like vessels that we fired,
fell thin as eggshells.

And every season, somebody burns,
downtown, taking turns–
taking a bus, to take a train and just plain vamoose.
Now the wind blows coals over the hills. Honey,
I’ve been paying my bills,
but honey it’s been a long time since I’ve come to any use.
And it hurt me bad, when I heard the news
that you’d got that call, and could not refuse.

(A goose, alone, I suppose, can know the loneliness of geese,
who never find their peace,whether north, or south, or west, or east;
and i could never find my way
to being the kind of friend you seemed to need in me,
till the needing had ceased.)

Recently, a bottle of rye, and a friend, and me,
on our five loose legs,
had a ramble, and spoke
of the scrambling of broken hopes, and goose eggs,
and of a stranger, long ago.
(Not you, honey! You, I know.)
We just spoke of broken hopes and old strangers.
Now the wind blows coals over the sea. Tell you what, honey:
you and me better run and see if we can’t contain them, first.

But you had somewhere that you had to go,
and you caught that flight out of Covalo.
Now, overhead, you’re gunning in those Vs,
where you had better find your peace,
whether north, or south, or west, or east.
And I had better find my way
to being the kind of friend you seemed to need in me,
at last (at least).

What’s redacted will repeat,
and you cannot learn that you burn when you touch the heat,
so we touch the heat,
and we cut facsimiles of love and death
(just separate holes in sheets
where you cannot breathe, and you cannot see).

And I cannot now, for the life of me, believe our talk–
our flock had cause to leave,
but do we?
do we?