Michael
Smith

Slow the rotation and add more hours
Extend all space make the cosmos cower

I'll run from the east and only go west
I won't let it set, I won't let it rest

Stalwart and sturdy unfailing the ferry
Decks be bedecked with yuletides and merry

The ocean, the mountains the damp and the fog
A landscape, a postcard, immemorial log

The border divides, on a map only seen
The sea and the sky a mirroring seam

Trapped here I sit on a boat that is late
Clocks don't align, just on time for my fate

To fall from love on the winter solstice
Curious fortune, destiny's poultice

Parasocial comfort lost
Eratic tides -- a lover tossed

For eyes alone borders crossed
A fools errand; boundaries cost

Aleviate, engratiate
It takes two to satiate

Defeated on the shortest date
Mercy prevails, a gift from fate

Swallow Tail Swallow Tail where do you go?
Your life but a week a decorative show

The monarch your cousin, orange in hue
Black on you both, but yellow your clue

Eight months for them, Seven days you get
Unconcious you float, unable to fret

Our visit just lasts an hour or two
A year long acquaintence according to you

Awareness and curious features of mine
Part of a fork with infinite tines

To be as you are -- one of your kind
For your knowing, your bliss I'd surrender my time

Swallowtail swallowtail is that you?
Or another, your brethren fluttering through

If not the same, where have you gone
Was yesterday witness your final yawn

Instead of the rhodos, high in the pines
Fluid you float with nary a line

Mere hours for me, you years older
The shape of your wings, broad silken shoulders

The span of your life through which you must fly
Unaware of me here, an obvious spy

Our time here borrowed as it is shared
Given I've all, all of me bared