huck

Last night
I dreamed I was dreaming of you
and from a window across the lawn
I watched you undress
wearing your sunset of purple tightly woven
around your hair
that rose in strangled ebony curls
moving in a yellow bedroom light

The air is wet with sound; the faraway yelping
of a wounded dog
and the ground is drinking a slow faucet leak

Your house is so soft and fading
as it soaks
the black summer heat

A light goes on and the door opens
and a yellow cat runs out
on the stream of hall light
and into the yard

A wooden cherry scent
is faintly breathing the air

I hear your champagne laugh

You wear two lavender orchids
one in your hair and one on your hip

A string of yellow carnival lights
comes on with the dusk
circling the lake
with a slowly dipping halo
and I hear
a banjo tango

And you dance into the shadow
of a black poplar tree

And I watched you as you disappeared
I watched you as you disappeared


Waits/Brennan