It’s a sad story,
the drowning man
in a cloud of fists
the first thing in morning
woken thinking of yesterday
and swinging wide like a boxer
finds the finish when he
splays on the mat, hair
absurd and wet for
just a fight in his memories
of fire and rush
of the way the sun
shocked when he woke seeking
like missiles seek below waters
a mid-night butterfly to take,
hunts
way of shore: soft
sand and dawn,
the cellar
where Geppetto carves a heart/
and how still is absence
of war. stillness
pulsing like a star grown
old or the shock of gardenias
in a scorching heat,
not a violin struck with flint
or the way a man can wail,
through city streets across
smelly kitchens and
mothballs clung to old coats
dark roads and alleys
in living of dying-
the flower unfolds
its self.
I think the man
questions if he can
swim in dark waters
and how will he meet
the sun, swinging
with those
wildcat fists? how
he could, like a shock
of gardenias, breathe
life of so-called dying;
make a home with
an artist in the cellar
where he is waiting
on the shore.