Erato

I've dreamt about this woman, in her storefront,

Hollowed-out office shell on the first floor,

And anxious once again to wend my way

Peek at her place, empty except for a junk piano.

Middle-aged, gothic, ballerina-thin, this wraith,

Watch her again on her feet, arching up,

Reaching into the high-set, arc-lit nook

For inventoried goods, for offerings my way

With a promise of a sparrow, Katherine

Hepburn, plain nickels, dimes, a celestial map,

French words, leaning towers, beads,

Chowder, bubbles, child head of future kings

Rattan and stone, twigs, yellow feathers

Bingo discs, springs and blocks and portraits,

Apothecary powders, small, rare eggs, 

Dehydrated peaches, targets, roots,

Sullen nests and blood spots, winding wire,

Toothpicks and a clapboard storage bin,

Corked flasks and the Goddess Isis,

Handbill, parakeet and string, smooth frames.

Things not there -- but more for that:

Lauren Bacall, a Bakelite grill, owl eyes,

Sticks, The Palazzo Pink, old carpet wedge,

Stoppers in a cabinet, wire barriers, soot

Medici and mah-jongg tiles, shadow

Collages, shadows of collages orbiting sun,

Bric-a-brac inside the fold of dreams -- she's

Offering in her turn my way, her adagio --

Text of a romance, fireplace, matches to burn

An architect's schematic, pool house, transept

Smelling of chlorine and sky, The Café Mar,

Money news and a shaving brush, number 12

Sunlight wet as an after-rain, copper rings, a vow

Renting a boat in Prague and going all the way

A marriage of the mind of her black corneas

Extended pen, and the history of what's next.


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