Of Islands

The bridge slats white

as we drive in blur, in moving memory,

in a station wagon lie.

Running remembrance

as youth even still is fading,

in God’s face, even –

even sun sometimes

finds water too bright.


Have you ever?

Because I did in the backseat,

once in a car two decades ago

twice, behind my body twenty-two drinks ago

and in the blacked burning, from eyes too long to light,

are the beaches below, there

what’s left of our future the Earth turns over –

swimming ass up yesterday,

ears popping in the dive down for tomorrow.


Of islands come these tides pulling

and only of islands.