I wake with an alarming desire
to arm myself with balloons...

I held your hair when you painted the sink with
Vodka-flavoured sick, and tucked you in...

I speak the summer, near the dusk
of the Atlantic, from the cove...

Why, your hair is forever a storm.
I do not own a mirror...

When did the hummingbird become mendacious?
Between the revelry I must have missed something...

I try to imagine a vixen, in a field of snow,
with four purple mitts like membranes to her feet...

I would mould my hands
into blinkers, so that nosy branches...

The memory and shadow
of his girl, diving to her grave...

The rhythm beat of sax floated
over from the canopied jazz club...

I walked you home, one last time,
we stopped at the gate. I remembered...

I wrote a poem, and it was a long poem
about hummingbirds and lilypads...

On Gleeson's hill, standing sentinel
overlooking the market town, an unraveling...