October night, the sun going down. How beautiful, these maps cut from clouds Suspended over brown prairie grass.

By the half light of another voyager, The moon, in them I will search for you Tonight, not knowing in which city or Under what constellation will I find you.

"...desire draws south when the leaves begin to turn." - Robert Haas

Quick days of autumn, this Indian summer Warming the gulfs, eyelets holding blue. A fence of white shirts in the breeze In this Chicago suburb. Taste of raw Tomatoes on the blackbird's tongue. Gulps of lemonade as frisbees arc and sail.

So much between us - distance, memory, Music, speech, delicate shell-light of winter Mornings - still to touch. Yet lying here, On this slope, green grass against my cheek, I daydream of nights when your hands might Remind me what is forgotten by such days: Spin of earth, and desire's purblind persistence.

As from a branch at daybreak, birds wheel into flight, words, sometimes even whole sentences now break from my exhalations.

O, just because you are endless life awakened, and thus can't be touched by anything other than the air that hides deep in the corollas of closed flowers, I breathe into them these poems.