On my bedroom wall I've an abstract painting
of two lovers -
one lavender
and one teal -
bedaubing and hushing each other with acrylic resin
They are shadowed by the wax-collected flames that subdue the tableau
Of what is portentous devotion.

Lately I've placed your poetry between Nabokov
and the official Led Zeppelin biography on my shelf
Ensconcing in myself the detriment of histrionic, inebriated
Adoration.

And as sure as I am this painting is a mirage of adulation
against the effulgent amygdala of poets
I am sure your words are an oubliette with shafts of light
Glimmering through the consonants of yearning and frustration

I used to sleep with them writhing at the foot of my bed
As I always do with everything that inspires -
But I soon changed the sheets after you departed
Into a night as humid as my atria
Vespertine as you are with each footstep to your car

And as sure as I am your facade blanches
Those unwilling to pay attention
I am sure your words are a bastille
Immuring you to the higher albatross of your subsistence
A tempest of repetition you mark with a Pilot pen
An eidolon composing a story we've already been in

It rained the night I knew you'd return
And I opened the Eastern windows of my bedroom
Illuminating the milieu as I did with
Taper candles and Ralph Vaughan Williams' 5th Symphony -
Like every night's become for me -

I retrieved your poetry from the shelf and
One by one set your asperities on fire
Breaking your pattern
And setting you free.

01/27/2005