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Bundles of goldenrod
clenched in each hand
I go to the ragged territories
where the marks of my kind fade quickly
sleep next to a swamp
wake up with my best hand
in a smooth flurry of tadpoles
wrinkled by water
spent all night lashing at the fields
with no woman to watch over me
my very being is stranded
fireflies in the amber of that stilled evening
hummingbirds at the archway
where dead gardens live
I practiced love like an escape artist
clothed in inter-dimensional purple
now I'm trapped in its maw plain-wide
swimming the time-stop
orchards left behind
turning their apples to drop
among the moguls of twilight

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