Salt sings,
the ocean brushes your lip,
a stallion is a ghost crossing your belly,
eyes list, and close,
makeshift dreams are left hanging
in the closet, alongside your
blouses, your coats, rompers and dresses,
hair sticks to his shoulders,
nails bitten down to nubs,
you bite at the heavy air
like a long wooden reed,
the clarinet of your hopes held,
lily soft braces, philharmonics, quakes,
tempers in the clutch,
no bird flown, just waves, only tiltaway gates
far down that road, the sea
a beating organ,
humming you
to death,
numb.