Goose Eggs

What we built, at the kiln that won’t be stilled

Did not set well:

The old veil of desire

Like the vessels that we fired

Fell thin as eggshells

And every season, somebody burns

Downtown, taking turns–

Taking a bus, to take a train and just plain vamoose

Now the wind blows coals over the hills. Honey

I’ve been paying my bills

But honey it’s been a long time since I’ve come to any use

And it hurt me bad, when I heard the news

That you’d got that call, and could not refuse

(A goose, alone, I suppose, can know the loneliness of geese

Who never find their peace, whether North, or South, or West, or East, West or East;

And I could never find my way

To being the kind of friend you seemed to need in me

Till the needing had ceased.)

Recently, a bottle of rye, and a friend, and me

On our five loose legs

Had a ramble, and spoke

Of the scrambling of broken hopes, and goose eggs

And of a stranger, long ago

(Not you, honey! You, I know.)

We just spoke of broken hopes and old strangers

Now the wind blows coals over the sea. Tell you what, honey:

You and me better run and see if we can’t contain them, first

But you had somewhere that you had to go

And you caught that flight out of Covelo

Now, overhead, you’re gunning in those Vs

Where you had better find your peace

Whether North, or South, or West, or East

West or East

And I had better find my way

To being the kind of friend you seemed to need in me

At last (at least)

What’s redacted will repeat

And you cannot learn that you burn when you touch the heat

So we touch the heat

And we cut facsimiles of love and death

(just separate holes in sheets

Where you cannot breathe, and you cannot see)

And I cannot now, for the life of me, believe our talk –

Our flock had cause to leave

But do we?

Do we?