“The Gulf of Maine” and “Wind and Waves”

The Gulf of Maine / is too cold to be heartbreaking, / but contains within it / a kind of dreadful dreamscape, / impossible to access / all the years my friend lived / in her lobster town. When / we finally got interested in the Atlantic, / every night changed. / My wish to be naked expanded / like a flower and my will / diminished. A nightmare is nothing / to fear, but a dream foretells / the end of something. According / to scientists, galaxies do not move / through space but rather with space / as it expands. How infuriating / to arrive at original thought / through theory. One should arrive / anywhere through nautical imagery.

“Blossom” and “Portraits”

You can change / with your last breath / and you can change / with your last breath / writes Bertolt Brecht / and in the book of change / you turn the page and turn / the page until there you are / a bus a train a short walk / into your life but what / you feel is that you might be / dying as whatever it is / that desires in you / that hopes that moves / has slid the brightness up / on your morning window / a cloud down on your mind. / With a whistle / only you can hear / an invisible leash and collar / fit for your neck a label / for your name you are / its dog now up too early / now somehow on a run. / A run?—you who hates / to run asks—me?