With melon and sack,
Feet bare and hair bundled,
The girl stands long at the water’s edge,
Watching the motionless floating
Of mahogany and linen sailboats.


Daisies, dandelions, clover, wild roses
Blossoming from the bed of a dammed river,
Trickle over the edge of a ravine
Into a tumbling creek
At the foot of a hill below the mountains.
The water bubbles black with shadows
Around a rock to a mirror pool,
Decked by a patio of flat stones,
Reflecting a dozen fat trout.


On dawn black water,
Mist breaking barge,
Canopied with chamomile,
Wakes to tea and cantelope:

Stillborn fantasy,
Dreamed in the music
Of your long brown songs.

A fire gutted warehouse
Blocks the view
Of the river that trickles
Through a lattice of magnolias.