Dear Heart,

You pump so many times the little pill
dissolves what gathers in the well. It sends
the red river flowing around the world
circuit we each call the only body.

Dear heart, you lie beside me as I sleep,
kissing my eyelids to keep me sleeping.
Your olive skin ripples under my touch
when remarkable days end and begin.

Juan woke. Cathleen was walking in the woods.
Her two cats were pacing. She came back in
to drink a glass of water . She gave him
reason to run after her in the sun.

He lay with her on the denuded earth.
You can guess, dear reader, what happened next.
No need to bore you with the obvious.
After they finish they drive into town.

Juan happens to be reading The First Third
with its cover photo of Cassidy
and Kerouac. Guy comes over and asks,
Did you know them? Juan dresses casually

when he drives around with Cathleen, Irish
–Black, that is–aborning with the sun high
noon side and a scape of nets awaiting
cargo swarming with silvertail singing . . .

Juan says no, the guy apologizes,
Cathleen adds her own, No, how could he know
them, he’s too busy going wild at home . . .
and Juan goes on reading until they leave.

Dear heart, you go with me to the city
where your pulse races the little pills down
the bounding avenues and up the hills
we must climb, you and I, with vigilance.

You take your time to the top and chorus
with blood’s thrum setting the beat of your breath
against the blue glinting, filling both eyes
she looks inside when you gaze into hers.

Somewhere down there is the outpost of dreams.
Long before the horses ran through your veins
you found succor in these streets, no corrals,
box canyons . . . until the country back east . . .

(19 April 2011)

copyright 2011 by Floyce Alexander