Zee.
04-18-2009, 07:08 AM
This isn't mine. But I want to know your views on it.
Deity comes home late
the lovely, tired little drunk
hair let loose and curling at the ends.
In the darkness of the living room,
and in her stocking feet,
she tiptoes to the couch
with exaggerated sneaking—
knees lifting almost to her chest
and arms outstretched like airplane wings—
to pass out limp and dreaming in her dress.
She does not see me in the doorway
a shadow leaning heavy on the frame,
the hollows of my eyes gone blue
a dozen years ago.
My vanity and my good looks
had the decency to leave together.
There is some mercy, after all, in our design:
a soft amnesia to the frequently mistreated, an adrenaline flare to the cornered and outnumbered, a flash of white light to the very nearly dead.
If I could sweep together all my scraps of time:
the leap years in my arms
and the hours lost in airplanes
flying east against the turning world,
I’d stitch them front to end
and weave a garland
like water lily crown,
lay it wet and heavy
on Deity’s spinning head of sun bleached hair.
Her even sleeping sounds
bounce lightly off the walls and floor
compounding ad infinitum
in the echo chamber of our home.
She is indifferent company,
member of the privileged caste
exempt from housework,
boredom,
and the sticky paper of intimate associations.
Still, I can’t resist the waif
flushed pink, and posed
exactly as she fell.
She is time-sick,
drunk and lovely.
I am just an incidental:
the kindly aging organism
that puts her down to bed
Deity comes home late
the lovely, tired little drunk
hair let loose and curling at the ends.
In the darkness of the living room,
and in her stocking feet,
she tiptoes to the couch
with exaggerated sneaking—
knees lifting almost to her chest
and arms outstretched like airplane wings—
to pass out limp and dreaming in her dress.
She does not see me in the doorway
a shadow leaning heavy on the frame,
the hollows of my eyes gone blue
a dozen years ago.
My vanity and my good looks
had the decency to leave together.
There is some mercy, after all, in our design:
a soft amnesia to the frequently mistreated, an adrenaline flare to the cornered and outnumbered, a flash of white light to the very nearly dead.
If I could sweep together all my scraps of time:
the leap years in my arms
and the hours lost in airplanes
flying east against the turning world,
I’d stitch them front to end
and weave a garland
like water lily crown,
lay it wet and heavy
on Deity’s spinning head of sun bleached hair.
Her even sleeping sounds
bounce lightly off the walls and floor
compounding ad infinitum
in the echo chamber of our home.
She is indifferent company,
member of the privileged caste
exempt from housework,
boredom,
and the sticky paper of intimate associations.
Still, I can’t resist the waif
flushed pink, and posed
exactly as she fell.
She is time-sick,
drunk and lovely.
I am just an incidental:
the kindly aging organism
that puts her down to bed