The outfit, tight in places,
and loose in some, says as much
in the buttons as it does in cuffs.

...you hold a poem
that functions half as personal
note and half as telescope
to the heights
awaiting us all.

I like watching
from inside, as if locked away
and stealing the distinct pleasure
of a high school marching band drum section’s
pure perfection. How stoically they play
in the exhaust of a fire engine’s wake.

Up past the old lime kiln
built into the side of a hill
we take a hard right at a clearing
lined by brittle apple trees
still willing to bear fruit.

I snap sticks beneath my feet
and steal pictures of the view
while you reach for something
sweet, as much as it bows
to you.

Such is a community
of inviolable immunity, protected
from tampering or harpooning
mutiny. Every better thinker’s impulse
to shrink us (at the shoreline from our
lifeblood’s deep pulse) uses disparaging
scrutiny to sink us.

And no matter what
closet we were thrown in,
up what river we were sold
for an embarrassment,
or worse, traded
for a bottle of gin--
we’d carry on in
playful stitches, friends
‘til the end…which came
sooner than wished.