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 in the middle.

I hold your feet,

strangely

birdlike, your

beard still brown.

Jesus washed

the feet of Peter,

Judas, too,

but in my hands

you fade before the ache

is laved away.

Alas, the bird is

just a pigeon, 

cousin to the dove.

washbowl emptied, 

water spinning

down the drain.

In the stairwell,

trapped in the wood, 

a pervasive must,

a sorrow in the grain, 

rotted railings

and rusted brackets

refixed fifty

times in vain.

Outside, 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.