When I was young, I drew

sculptures on the beach,

holding tight against reckoning

waves,

In bold ignorance of all to come

they stood, looming

weaving a hope that some day

they might come true

The fantastic scenes of monsters

slain under bedclothes before

frights could reach me

sleeping soundly,

Of lovers conquering the grand

canyons that tore them asunder,

heedless of the cost in gold,

in bloody bruises.

****

They wash away.

Like hearts, broken each

morning in screen glass.

Like loving words, silenced

by callous hallway echoes.

Like dawns, swallowed

by unbending night.

Like wonders, captured

in the eye, forgotten.

They wash away.