On the Ghost Ship Lollipop

  A time at Crater Lake, this snag floating around what, a century or         nobody knows, but the thing

is the old tree wherever it battered down from doesn’t sink, doesn’t       moor. A lake with no outlet,

all night with no one looking     it moves, following like   us some current.

  In this poem everything is better       than it really is.

That’s why I’m dancing like   this, to the right, to the   left (too many th-words

    though, like thorns or terrapins riding the deadfall)       Forget I said

poem. I want to drown out that     signal, throw it down break it and step forward as myself

say I’m not a tree, I’m more or     who knows, temporary   and gentle and cruel, some

times I just stand and do this and sing     along with my arms. (long way down & so blue)