for L
Monet looked from his boat into no greater wonder than I do from mine this night of
breeze and moon. I'm asking what I'm doing. Someone who knows please listen.
Four months to this, a pronoun hung to the sky's dark scrim. Nouns and
verbs Hemingway said. Adjectives are the reader's work. Of your father you said:
He always left the table hungry. He told you you had a good seat for riding. Don't take
no pony to know that baby.
How you said oh then I love you as we bucked against your
bathroom sink trying to be quiet with your kid playing on the rug outside the door.
The squeeze of your face,
your lips soft turned up to me
the peak like a bird's.
The moon up there, that sly bugger.
I want you to have the look that stops me, and insists, by me seeing it on you, on simplicity.
The light of the world in alleys and poolhalls and grimy yellow, deep in ships, the engine
boys swaying writing home.
You're my baby I say to you.
I love you baby you say.
I found you now I found you now
and baby you found me.