Always, with you, there was moon.
Drunk and merry,
You in your party dress and pumps,
we cut loose
the mooring and drifted
out past midnight.

When the wind came up
We lost the oars,
Were whipped out two miles
past the old mill.

O
how I hated loving you, then!
Visions
of your potter’s hands
Forever centering, wasted
in some dusty shop…
In that raw boat
Kyoto
was enough reason.

I jumped,
tried to push us up the side of the lake,
half drowned.
You,
you kept your back to me,
a silver wing, quiet
as the lake’s own stones
Quiet
under all that moon.

Later,
bottle of tequilla down
I suddenly realized you were all
I needed to know
at nineteen.
Your gold hair spread
like the lake, in my lap; your laugh
as Deep
as the night
we had come in from.

Years now in the West,
I get to be tragic: wear black
I am listened to, but
My heart
rattles when I walk.
Clattering
if I move too fast
Toward women
Who look like you. A bad firing. It cracked
in half. Irreparable.

I still believe.
Hauntings.
Second comings. Meetings
in the grass.
Godot
sailing up, close,
to a darkened dock.

Words appear where there was only paper.
Ink
spills itself
into a line.
If you hear wings, look up.

Whatever I retain
of the magic,
These facts still
smack of you.