Wholeman and the Dirtyhot Dream

His she is only time, only
a blues string—never a note.
The poet and his odalisque
make moons when they touch.

The bodies are ovals;
the minds are vegetation.

The bodies are spinning.
The minds are agave.

Together they are incongruent.
So, the poet returns to the page,
no further from blues
than from the moonshine
in her cup, the moonlight at her flesh.

It has been a year and time is still
failing. In her dream his bare feet
tramp as they do in waking;

a dust storm whirls between
their bodies. She extends her arms,
offers her embrace to bind the living

with the already lived. He arrives
at the threshold only to turn back
to watch the birth of moons
or the passing of time, depending.