Peril (1995)

I have traveled here
casting most of my heart
to the voracious sea
racing a black catamaran
so fast and smart and cruel
slicing the surge
as no family man could,
or would
A lover forever
reaching for the door

They say great poems
require an even greater silence
midnight margins
to write St. Elmo's fire
But my ghosts
are whispering ice
in this tin cup of a night
leaking ichor from my pen
like the spoor of a bad dream

In this tiresome feud
between the art and the heart,
I'm less sure every day
which is the greater peril:
these sails so billowed
with guilt and guile
or the siren swells of a sea
that reach out to
seduce it all back to this.