Poem: the island

I was thirteen,
a pretty girl,
floating on the crap
of lake Erie,
heading toward the city.

half-drunk
and wearing that old mask-
like the one that men before, who
had skipped cigarettes for dimes
and smiled
the smiles of men
who drank too much
and lied, yellow,
on the bellies of
the empty beaches

it was a night when the cars
had stopped
and clouds broke darkness with
shadows of forests
and oceans, and i was young-
bobbing up.

warm lakes and rivers
ran down the legs of
restless city children
and past through the
rusty tounges that slid
on hot rocks
of sidewalks,
spiting out dust
and fever.

and even then
i knew enough to
tell you
that those sprinklings
of dasies to mother
Mary would blow away,
up noses of the ogers
and giants who sleep
beneath the eves
of the gem beach church.