Hyperion Must Have Settled Here

Hyperion Must Have Settled Here

Sitting on a levee, watching boats
and boats, boats enough to make it seem
that the water is riding boats,
I’m hating myself for
having called this home.
To remember how every day, waking to a great, bright sail
bound across my window, then to open
a door to see boats. They haunt me: parked
on all the lawns, in backyards and driveways,
parking lots, storage sheds, in bigger boats,
on the lakes, in garages, on a dog’s grave,
in the backyard where I broke a hamster wheel,
where an old ghost or two drown every morning.
On the levee, they circle like limp creatures
and circle, sending glowing dragon trails
behind them, circling, circling, yelling,
mocking the sun above them blushing orange,
in their liquid playground made gentle
by the dam, circling above the sunk cities,
narcissist suns, gluttonous creatures.
Strange: nothing to do or say. Nothing at all. Except think,
draw little circles in my head, mock the sun, think.