SAILOR

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads














Chasing tail lights
your dream in the rear-view mirror
still disbelieving she isn't real
when you know you were there
the same as you are here

low buildings ramble
under the scimitar moon
as you murmur
sail on sailor

recalling how you used to feel so awkward
inside your own skin
until the revelation
that you were the observer
and the observed

and you try to hold onto that now
as you navigate the desperate grey streets
wading into a maze of strange gazes
knowing they don't have a clue
like when you
pored over some verse from a poet
you knew little about
other than you'd both been married
to the same woman
trying to gain some inkling
as to what the attraction might have been

laughter spills from open doorways
where music numbs
a thousand coexisting ills
 just as alone in a crowd
as you've ever been

reflecting on this life
a fairy dust landscape
of mirage and illusion
you feel so invisible
you could lean against a wall
and disappear
like a moon getting sucked
into a black hole
never again
having to face the sun