Sheets

in that sunlit room
we are not alone
between the twilight gloom
eyes that are not my own
you took a hold of my need,
weight in a corner of your mind
allowed me for a split second to feed.
to your cruelty we are blind

within an inch of our lives
this cannot be quick
to this burning confusion we arrive
the sweet poison is thick
tearing the flesh clear off the bones
it seeps in like the tide
into a passion that is full blown.
eroding my skull from inside

in the aftermath and the wake,
you vanish like a vapor
a kiss and a curse I cannot shake,
as a lingering dread of dolor
wash me up on this forgotten shore
resting its head where once you lay
one I have visited a thousand times before.
begs the heavy expense of passion I am left to pay

fall

This is where I work, as of today.



No doorman, but it's hard to complain.

one

one drop of water
falling into blue
creates perfect
centric waves

why can't we
be like water
when we fall
down?
.

calm

quiet as a canoe
gliding on lake water
silver and placid

parallel trips

I met the French couple in Vik. They were sharing my room at the hostel, along with a sweet student from Okinawa named Takoyama (fried octopus balls?).

Clothilde and Sylvie were older than anyone you normally meet in hostels, but then so was I. In Iceland, even a bed in a dormitory costs $30.

It was close to midnight, barely dark, and I had my laptop out, enjoying the free wifi. Clothilde pulled out his laptop too, and we typed away, recharging batteries and uploading photos.

I asked where they'd gone, and Sylvie recited the same places I'd just been: Reykjavik, Skogafoss, Dryholaey.



We compared photos. Hers showed urban sculptures, close ups of puffins, artfully framed waterfalls. Mine were mossy landscapes filled with lava rocks, tombstones from the graveyard, marathon runners in red t-shirts.

"Two travelers in the same places at the same time," she said, "but you'd never guess it."

blanc

back home she looked through the photos of the road trip and wished she had stopped in that curve after all, on the day of the Glandon crossing, the day that was covered with a sky as liquid as water, with a lingering view to the peek of the Mont Blanc at the edge of the horizon. the first time she looked, the peek wasn't there, then it appeared and disappeared again, as if the mountain was moving through dimensions, together with the flock of sheep that was herded by an old man first, and later reappeared, guided by a female shepherd who stood not far from the road, like an illusion, like the guardian of a scene too precious to disturb.
.