Mystery Street

There was a body;

so there must have been a crime.


Bones in the sand, bones in the dunes...
Sandpipers in the glass of a peeping tom,

and a ballerina’s bones there,

half buried in the cape.


Ornithology means looking at birds.
Like pornography,

it starts with small stuff and ends

with foot-bones in the face of a peeping tom...

a corpse in the dunes.


Sure there was a crime, but where

did it start and when will it end?


Where was the yellow Ford?
Where was the boatman’s Colt?

We wondered; we searched.
We probably got our man,

but we found no remedy at all.


Just another sunset on the dunes,

looking over the sea,

watching the sky

become empty of light.