MAXINE KUMIN
Tell me, black heart, twelve white lies.
Let separate cars be our disguise.
Unpack the thin bags of the exiled
each time in the out-of-season inn
where love feeds us like insulin
and summer chintz is glazed and mild.
Stuff my head with alibis.
Tell me, black heart, twelve white lies.
Take two bodies, Davy Jones.
Drink them down to lazybones.
Take bourbon in a toothbrush glass
while the ocean tongues the shore
ten thousand times tonight before
a squall drives off the striper bass
and washes up new lucky stones.
Take two bodies, Davy Jones.
Small comfort that we are not drowned.
Beached and flapping, run aground,
we wake as fresh as children do.
Morning’s misty, noon’s a ghost.
Rain falls farther up the coast.
Checkout time is half-past two.
Lovers lie here safe and sound.
Small comfort that we are not drowned.
Tell me, black heart, twelve white lies.
Stuff my head with alibis.
Let the gusting east wind chip
splinters from the opposing roof.
Our bed rocks like a mooring slip.
Doubt raps twice behind my eyes.
Tell me, black heart, twelve white lies.