Hamburg

The phone rang and the Wall fell.
"Kommst du?" Gudrun whispers
from a hotel overlooking cottonwoods, the Bahnhof,
tracks that run each way but north.

Autobahn

I am stupid with the wind-rubbed passage,
reading channels cut in concrete,
lifeline in a Saxon palm,
rifling that twists north.

"If it should rain", she had said,
"drive faster."

Hotel

Campari and Dunhills,
the blood of spider bites.
In eclipse", she says,
"nothing is lost."

Letter from Crete

"I am reading Rilke", went the photo note,
her hands knitting, eyes left
to a woven basket, prop
for someone's crossed ankles.

Decade

The answerbox coughs out the day.
"Jeffery, are you there?"
The Rockies wrinkle at the knees.
"No, my love", I breathe into the Chinooks.

45

My oldest child asks me:
"Is love like the night we watched for satellites,
and you told ghost stories, and we laughed
about the grass marks on our palms?"

50