Some nights after a cruise I will go to bed without taking a shower wearing the scent of the diesel and river on my skin. Though I try not to wake her, she mutters half-awake and pushes up next to me. We breathe each other in. She smells of ripe peaches and spring flowers. We fall asleep.
Category Archives: river life
physiology of a steamboat fireman
my eyes spotlights the river the pressure gauge the clock
my feet tapping to the tune the cruise tocks
my knees the pistons moving pitman legs
my head a series of endless bilges and bleeding bulkheads
my belly the boiler forever firing
my hands mere extensions of valves of wrenches of torches
Autumn Notes, 1-2
1.
Pray to this wind
carry me away
knowing
it will not
2.
a season is a scarf
too long to wear
a sacrament stored
in a plastic tub under the bed
where the dog sleeps at night