warning! poetry! warning!

I'm pretty much on my way to poetry class right now, but I feel like the ol' blog needs an updating. So here are a couple of poems (without the changes suggested by the teacher and class) that were particularly well recieved.

Where the Creek is Shallow

Earlier he had listened to the gravel under his feet;
His dog’s excited, haggard breathing,
Her ears alert, listening too, for everything:
That far away creek,
And the slowly shedding leaves,
Some branch breaking and tumbling down its tree.
And they began, then, toward the copse, that old gate,
That old stump, a fallen tree--
Its roots torn from the ground and spread
Like fingers are spread from a desperate hand.

Later he will go back home, out of breath and shaking,
With his dog, oblivious, proudly trotting behind him,
And turn the sink on hot, plunge his hands in
And use the soap, wring his hands, and stand there washing.
When he was a boy he went fishing in that creek
And noticed each season’s changing leaves.
But in his kitchen he will notice the flesh of his palm,
The hair on his knuckles, all his fingers there and
Working. A blessed thing that Sunday morning.

Still. His dog laps at his hand and he lets her,
Her nose wet, her haunches wet from the spray against the stone.
Yet he would not stop staring at the body drifting in its tomb;
How, like reeds, the slow flow of the stream undulated its fingers;
And there, like a boat finding shore, some fallen autumn leaf
Did strike against and sail along the useless line of its wasted cheek.
A thought crosses uninvited then, against his numbing feeling:
That if the water were just deeper, the body would float away,
And he could look, away, at it-- not dead, but sleeping.
Not floating, but swimming.

My Own Rolled to my Elbows

I have three hours before
She gets back from class
And I’ve spent most of it
Finding this spot.
My bike is leaning against
The tree I climbed earlier;
My hat is just above my eyes;
I know there are clouds
And sea spray beyond that hill.
I know how her sweater will feel
And I wait.

It is not too much longer
Nor too cold.
The taste of apple is sticky
On my lips.

And that's it. I also wrote a villanelle, but I'm not sure how I feel about it, no matter what my classmates said.