In front of a comma

In front of a comma

In front of a comma

Seven hours earlier, beside a park bench
he slept standing

Now pendulous & out of his shell, drawing thin
blue lines & flowering water-blisters

through the pool behind him,
he wonders what it would be like

to speak with her again
but possibility as unlikely is a drawer for reddened eyes

where days spent
under the acacia tree, where
the missing xylophone keys he found in her car, where
an empty house, thick with imagination after     a long absence

are stowed between
warped playing cards, plastic goggles & a coil of chipped,
yellow beads

. . . . .

Trembling, he pauses on the ropes to de-splinter
two sorts of daydream

one he can dispose of & the other
he is lacking

from the open window, a swallow         half erased by the sun
swerves into his mouth