Absconding

…starts with A, an hour before time. From bed,  
re-ignition lights spark 
fire in the adjacent hearth.  
                                              If looked at,  
its oak would be charring, even now. 
 
                                       Your hand rubs a palm  
the poker's handle stings; a few more seconds,
iron bangs wood on the grate 
 
                            till it falls, 
predictably; then ash. Voices sensate,  
prayer is first saying  
 
           Are you there? then  
Yes,      I am; I am all along I am right here.

Aubade

Its aftereffects: 
silver hand-mirror and turquoise comb,
antique dresser and peeling wall. 
                                                      Through east window
our tenement-space: blinds light-creaked,
dew on some outer pane vap'ring like dust.

The building: derelict of grand hotel— 
Parisian, gargoyle-decked, 
lauds already singing in Huysmanic fashion…

Sunday? say Sunday.

The note should be unintelligible, 
scrawled in haste:
the hand left only minutes before. (That blank sheet
with those crazy indents desire makes.) 

Regarde: 
"Je suis allé à la plage. Grab einkaufen gegangen. Last night, ooh,
marvelous. Soon. Soon, love."

Clear of the pavingstones you step lightly over
down to the café: I reset my watch.

Love is a country

L'amore è un paese. Off the map.
Its rulers are invisible; children play
all hours in the gardens. 
Now vacant, now thriving.
Innocence has a way of discovering itself.

The tourists are uncouth, but
they leave. The girl won't budge. 
A statue
               they say.
Her playmate, the Prince,
is lost with her hair in an old mirror.

Mountain Drive

Dot rides barefoot on the dash.
She tunes the radio with her toes,
puts on lipstick while singing.
She knows all his favorites.

Her fingers are just right. Nimble, 
they slip the wind
and give leaves to the seat. One, two—
green drips on the vinyl—

he squirms; the engine drones.

At the Leasing Office, Waiting to Pay My Rent

Fan-flicker over tapestried chair-back,
hand,     a brow,
September the sun gone
dim behind space, clouds and pine needles—

some dead on the skylight
doing for stained glass—

that's twilight. Morning's
wood walls, Beams' X, six-foot arches
squared and trimmed plain. "No personal checks," 
some fat guy's barking orders 

while I'm in this other chair
with thumb and index raised in a loop,
a quarter-sized spot at arm's length,
marks where a heart should beat.