Darwin, Sickness, and Venice

   Darwin, Sickness, and Venice

My recollections made from you and of

Our time together are too much like ghosts

Of gondolas.  They move in fogs of love

And far too fast in haze between the posts

On either side of grand canals.  There black

Gesticulations of the water swell

In pain behind the stern.  Those ghosts go slack,

Though, as they pass my heart.  It slides unwell

Among these memories.  Their darkness moves

With waves inside my chest until I wake

To find that you and they are lost in grooves

That waking moments cannot hope to slake.

  Where are you really now that we are far

     Apart?  These dreams are just a wavering scar.