The Hunch

she wore red like a razor cut quite a figure

standing there her slender danger

dividing day from night there

from here. where I hoped to be is near

her and her fragrant flammable hair

words like always entering my mouth

that once only gargled doubt.

you see, I'd been used before like a car

between us this sweating a grandfather clock's steady tick soundtrack of saxophones sighing.

It's been too long a whole week

since love burned me like rye I had begun

to see the glass as never empty

and that scared me.

she fills me like a lake

fills a canoe no rescue and to swim

I never learned how.