Looking over My Shoulder

without wife, issueless, breath

turning frost

an easy slide out of happiness

I came here

to Key West

in winter, wanting to be closer

to moorings

-nearer the seashells' story

of chance-rather than stay there

for old explanations

of love and lust

repeated

a fish stench riding

the breeze, decay and fecundity

smell the same to me

irony is no help

everywhere I look I see

the broken reef

crowded with life

its swift tale

a sea exchange in minutiae

and Venus somewhere teasing

I stand in between

sand and water

listening, catch my breath

feel a summons

14 the tide running, sand

I'd take up sailing

if I felt a need

but have found no harbor

I wait for a cloudless

afternoon

until sun and moon

once again together

grown old apart

reserve an intimacy for me.