we hustled a lot

as old lovers do

when squandered account of cheap highs,

coughsyrup lows,

account of allnight nurse and doctor sessions,

Prince and Miles at 16rpm’s scratching along on the box,

bleached lovers determined to remain less attached

we got off laughing

at each other's exotic expensive weekend package deals

all expenses paid

with or without really ever being there

and we would voyage together dreaming of revivals,

pitching orgiastic tents,

craving hotspring breasts constantly swelling with desire,

bragging about seducing strangers to survive

but old rivers

eventually part for friendship sake,

for we are sincere hip-weary travelers

who have learned

yearning for lost and old rivers cannot satisfy

we would nurture a solitary entity,

ourselves a neurotic unit,

two half notes

residing within a breathless indigenous romantic interlude,

perhaps something some people pray for,

a home between ocean symphonies,

so masterful this unit,

this old river dividing our downtown dance

into unbounded amatorial tantric performances

and so we remained silent

conscious we had roughed it out once again,

this unit,

this old river

lost, and we are lost

and old rivers,

and there is a place for river travelers

who constantly seek oceans,

because old rivers can become

historic rivers

where the light is gorgeous

even here in this canyon wash

where we drag along

reclusive, adrift

and so we have become old rivers,

oldtime Mississippi tugboats,

muddy waters that have swallowed so much seed

(and swelled pregnant from the knowledge),

waterways that have seen right through the promises,

right through the onetimelet’sfeelgoodrightnow’stheonlytimethatmatters passion,

old rivers that sweep along

other voyagers like us,

sliding,

scraping, grasping at forsaken currents,

those very rivers carrying lovers like us to some foreign port

to be seduced

incensesinged-oilrubbed-read the classics to,

units like us

drifting down lost and old rivers

determined to withstand these tides, or just free ourselves

and then go under, conjoined,

down the inevitable River Styx, where

those stygian waters

pool who we are,

those very waters we will always be

1987

Brooklyn, NY