madison 2004

2004

photo © m madison

beach finds

In my small clear vase are pieces of
your ocean glass, round and worn
from sand and from the bruising
of seas who brought them
here. Smooth and coldish, they burn in primal color and
in shades of mottled white. We had looked for blue.

19 mar 04
.

interim sun

Today you were copper.
You were not the
last few seconds of rain
that fall from
sponge-soaked limbs.
You were copper and
polished and slipping through
the shapes of me, attaching
legs to my
paper-doll shadows
until they could stand up
alone. Marcasite, its
silver facets, platinum.
You were lens flares
and warm humid nights of
heat lightning; 300 watts
of strobe light in an
infinite blue of oceans
full throttle to my
counterglow. Today,
I felt your copper sun
break through the
summer sleep of sky,
the silence of
my sun-light eyes.

04 jul 04
.

photo © M Kaufman

photo © m kaufman

watermarked

Above the throaty voice
of a creaking dock
wind-swept masts ring hollow.
Their bare poles sing
in perfect pitch like choir rows of
forgotten children
in the harbor.
Land miles of sky
between us, his hands feel
only seconds

from my skin.
And always his eyes,
lipreading
coffee bean moons of brown;
their slow liquid passage
from behind the crisp
white sails.

The night is clean and deep,
transparently blue; and I sit
cross-legged in the window seat
in envy of
the square-rigged
canvas sails,
islands of sea miles away.

03 aug 04
m madison

2004

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