Losing track

Poems 1960-1967 (1967)

Long after you have swung backaway from meI think you are still with me:

you come in close to the shoreon the tideand nudge me awake the way

a boat adrift nudges the pier:am I a pierhalf-in half-out of the water?

and in the pleasure of that communionI lose track,the moon I watch goes down, the

tide swings you away beforeI know I’malone again long since,

mud sucking at gray and blacktimbers of me,a light growth of green dreams drying.