Announcements

As often happens at points of departure –
airports, stations, at an evening’s close,
others too, but these for the moment,
they make you sit up or strain to listen
or duck to dodge their bullets.

This one’s frequent:
it comes with the sound of an engine thought dead
but sent to you live, its bright eye kept on you
all the way, on skin the breath of a forge
invisibly far, that can’t be extinguished,
the heat of waters swiftly approaching,
a lifting of sorrow, always, before they hit.

The Days

Black rocks run their wounds.
The last swimmers pause.
The sun’s on edge, a gong.

His mother goes alone.
She won’t be coming back.
Each day ends like this:
she won’t be coming back.

Fathers have their reasons,
people have their stones.
Black rocks run their wounds.