Intimate Stranger

WHERE IS MY LOVE

in a big room behind a glass wall

looking out above water

the color of green oblivion

how ferryboats waddle from quay

to fog-written islands in the bay

mirrored in pane the vague figure

of a naked man as he waits

now and then the veil blows away

and a bone city on distant mountain coast

flickers fleetingly

flits and flattens again

to an imagined memory

where is my love my love

on either side the soaring gray metropolis

of concrete and shine and neon thoughts

along streets the trees in a still

fire of fall

a few cars soundless and wet

sometimes a pedestrian with mouth of cold breath

a dog on a leash

a crow flutters by and later a gull

storied debates around the nature of being

and for what will man be held to account

the rush of voices

as the heart bears its shout

where is my love my love

on the edge of this continent

of forest and snow

by the end of the world

at the hem I say

of a dark ocean

where whalefish roam

to hollowly sound their despair

in waterlogged waiting rooms

if one were to let darkness flood

who would identify the corpse

who fold the shroud like a wing around absence

what name as solitary password

will be pinned to the waterlogged heart’s hollow

a crow flies by and later a gull

where is my love oh where is she now

Vancouver