The tulips never really hurt
As they rose up in the night
Thrashing over the bed

Fraudulent days, the surfaces collapse
When against them you press your finger
The beautiful brick suit
When you scrape it is only a tinsel clothing
The whole upper stories of the building
Touched, is a seagull’s back, revealed

Grackles, scatter like pieces
of a story. Sweethearts
of ash and butter, finger
squint-star light, draw
a spine down the highway.

 He can’t stop thinking about apricots
shriveling, paint belching, tiny frogs
dripping above matches. Outside
his secret fort, yellowing
sycamore leaves crackle.

Seems ages on the hill above the rocky point
I have kept my eyes on the horizon where sky
drops to sea. No sign of any ship I do not
recognize, just the ragtag wornout fishing fleet
about to sink. No single sail grabbing the wind
and fifty men at oars to tell us you are back.

On a high plateau where the earth rounds off
the edge of nothing and the sky pours down
like hail so heavy that the pickup squats
on its springs and groans toward the horizon,
you think of Andy, all those years long gone.