Hideaway

Rode a pointed wing south of my cage;
found him among reeds in the bayou,
mastering tai chi on a peeling kayak.

Chest-deep into Alabama August, reason
abandoned me on that dock. 
Concentration capsizing, I watched
his chest fill with silence.

Then I was honeysuckle melting sticky
in the sun; I was a snakeskin boot
propped cocky on his chrome. 

He poured into bowls, like country gravy
one morning, a dream of verandas, gulf shores,
garden music. Laid me down on a patchwork quilt,
pieced us a life of low-tide watercolors off the pier.

But touched me only behind opaque veils,
asked me to exit by anonymous back stairs,
lest peering neighbors see that
he and I are hardly family.