Gone West

GONE WEST 7601XX January 1976

By JCSTREET © 2004

The old mill has
crumbled
since you went west

The water
brown
what water there is a
trickle perhaps
not the torrent spring remembered

What WAS your name behind
those big round glasses . . . you
giggled sometimes

giggled
when you were a little drunk

The birds are down
Tipsy in a plummet the
old place isn’t quite the same
since the mill closed

Your footprints melted
last spring trickled
away into cubbyholes

What WAS your name going
home of an evening the moon
dancing like a sixpence
on the telephone wires

What WAS your name I
burned your letters I
can’t recall,
only the crumbling stone sometimes
brings a wisp of it

The west wind brings whispers: whispers
of life on the coast, a
nine pound baby boy
feeding on the sea . . .
your milk-full breasts;

another’s lips

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