Pine Street

In my dreams,

you’re a hermit 

whose hands shake, 

spilling tea,

holed up in the block

across from Bourque’s, 

reticent, willfully

lonely. 

I visit three times 

before you crack the door,

your apartment tiny, 

stale, 3rd floor.

Smoke curls 

from an ashtray

dropped on

a stack of books.

Where have you been?

Do you know I have a girl?

The slat-back chair

where you sit 

at the window, 

short a spindle.

A flutter 

grabs your gaze, 

- a bird -

your fingers twitch.

Hello? I say, Hey?

You look away.

In all my dreams, 

a riddle:

how to end a story 

cored at the middle.

I take

your feet, strangely

birdlike, your

beard still brown.

Jesus washed

the feet of Peter,

I say, Judas, too,

but in my hands you fade

before any ache

is laved away. Alas,

the bird is

just a pigeon, 

only cousin to the dove.

washbowl emptied, 

water spinning

down the drain.

In the stairwell,

trapped in the wood, 

a pervasive must,

sorrow in the grain, 

rotted railings

and rusted brackets

refixed fifty

times in vain.

Outside, in heavy August air,

- À tout à l'heure? -

I watch your truck

-red with rust -

turn east on Pine.

Au revoir again,

plume of dust.