is your jewellery still lost in the sand

out on the coast, or rushed into the brine?

you left your rings on the shoreline

so you wouldn't lose them swimming in the shallows



a plastic shovel, soft sweaty children far from home

on vacation not unlike your very own



and the Captain Howdy lit upon my shoulder

and he left me with sulphur and rooms full of headaches

I fell in with snakes in the poisoned ranks of strangers

please send me more yellow birds for the dim interior



will my pony recognise my voice in hell?

will he still be blind, or do they go by smell?

will you promise not to rest me out at sea

but on a fiery river boat that's rickety?



I'll never find my pony along the rolling swell

a muddy river or a lake would do me well

with hints of amber sundowns and moody thunderstorms

a sunken barge's horns, with the cold rusty bells