On My Way to Baltimore.

 On My Way to Baltimore,

 “…their excellent harbour; and many a traveller, reduced by them to skin and bones, had forfeited the happiness of reaching home.”  -Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 4. 892 ff (Greek epic C3rd B.C.)

I looked for you

Dockside the aircraft carrier.

How enticing, the glance you had flung

Into our brief history of landing here.

How enticing, your orange peel song

Perfected in one piece upon the dense dining table.

How enticing, dropping out of the sky

Turning off your alarm and singing into airspace –

The fighters shook clouds by their shoulders

To find you.

Sing,  The harbored sky jangled

          Like the back of my father’s

          Rickety pickup and I knew I was alive.

I looked for you

As I shewed away the blackbirds

Blew the cobwebs alley ward

And like a future neighbor,

Sprayed your perfume into our future house fire. 

I took out the note you left

wrote a forwarding address on each of my ears.