Love Pirates

I follow with my mouth the small wing of muscle   
under your shoulder, lean over your back, breathing   
into your hair and thinking of nothing. I want
to lie down with you under the sails of a wooden sloop   
and drift away from all of it, our two cars rusting
in the parking lot, our families whining like tame geese   
at feeding time, and all the bosses of the earth   
cursing the traffic in the morning haze.

They will telephone each other from their sofas   
and glass desks, with no idea where we could be,   
unable to picture the dark throat
of the saxophone playing upriver, or the fire
we gather between us on this fantail of dusty light,   
having stolen a truckload of roses
and thrown them into the sea.

From: Overtime,
Eastern Washington University Press, 2001

Doorway
                  For my parents

They do not come for long
from that far country,
appearing in momentary changing light
or walking in the forest after rain.
I follow deer tracks etched in the path
where the stream runs down
and shadows and the green ribs
of grassblades move.
My mother stops to rest
exactly here , leaning on his arm
still corded with muscle.
The war ended six months ago
and they think nobody else will die,
watching cattails brush the shore
talking in low tones by the water. 

From: Fortune,
Eastern Washington University Press, 2007