That the day,
with all of its minor chords
and it glissando-like conversations
should come to this:
fireflies and maybe a full moon
struggling through
an agreed upon darkness;
ranchers somewhere
dreaming of fabulous wealth,
socialites casually fainting
on the manicured lawns
of a forbidden city,
and the chords, still minor
and only slightly augmented,
decaying successfully in the company
of a hybrid peony,
that it should come to this:
dogs rolling and biting
playfully at the edges
of an unfinished painting,
and the guests rising
from their lawn chairs
like balloons or perhaps kites
because the chatter
of distant children has been stifled
by the silence of a wound
brilliant in its scarring futures,
that it should come to this:
ghosts seeking tangible intimacies
at the windows of condominiums,
ghosts at the doors
of empty boardrooms,
ghosts as surfaces of the unfortunate,
rattling the same cup
in the same saucer
in the same dreary light
of a butcher’s moon,
that it should come to this:
you, the sleepwalker of my dreams,
the barometer of my moods,
you, the crow of my silences,
the snow storm of my hopes,
mistaking the map makers of heaven
for the masons of hell;
not even the catapult of youth
can change the wording
or shoo the angels away from the accident
of our sordid memories:
the eternal drama
of our cotton promises
knotted and hanging
from a drugstore transom.