Jasmine High (A Dream Poem)

In what town have I slipped off to the smell
of costal water? What dock with flaking paint
and lamps of taffy blue have I padded down,
in fishy air, pressing a red-head’s hand?

A long haired teenage troubadour was twanging
from the wilted bar a half mile down
the shore. This late, just one old bluejeaned angler
was squinting downward on the fragile waves.

And as they overturned, a ceaseless blinking
partly stolen from the glowing town,
and part their own sad folding, white on gray,
they made me sad, and love her all the more.

A love that troubled and comforted me
as wind that wandered down the little alleys,
that liked but didn’t stir the hung-up herbs,
that liked but didn’t understand the cloud

ragging all hard all night against the moon.
The clatters of dishes from the yellow houses
were sounds of home that just put home farther
away. The jasmine swelled against my brain.

When I became a wind that chased your hair,
and spent all night collecting sand to splash
against a dune, I lost you in the rhythm
of those transpiring, unconnected things.

My red head, dove, my green eyed hummingbird
above the dock, my pair of scraped bare feet,
sundress, old swan, what town is this, with salt
still in my shoes, I’ve dreamed? Have I dreamed you?

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