I no longer read poetry;
my eyes have shut to beauty
because you are gone.

Like the wind loves leaves
somersaulting on a breeze,
my love was wrong.

Rather than life, I let you fall
to ground where, piled and burnt,
our love turned to ash then dirt.

So meaningless words no longer
thrill me like a schoolboy lover
who hears his first "yes."

upon a morning smile
from night thoughts
shared with none,
carried through day
into evening relaxation
then covered and bedded down

so much depends
on that smile

I might have slapped the naked ass
of dawn with my still stiff night's
not cold at all. I was so hyped
to go aloft that day could not chirp
a half-note for the tone deaf worm.
Could not breakfast on a grub,
my stomach tight. Sat numb as
boy whose first naked bitch consents
but just walks in on self-inflicted fun.
It was a morning thick with erection
on a boy under the maple that would
not go away in shame. Such
is the first day of a bird's flight.
And, flight, father had said, was not
to be matched by any other experience.
Not the first love nor last.

So I spilled to the rough green ground
where I lay frozen in the stare of a cat.
Hell's like that for the boy by the tree
and the one in his room by himself
dreaming aircraft, glider, parachute,
and feathered arms outstretched.