Sullen Composure
Composed here
small space
of the even smaller room
to be collapsed inside.
(Pair of warm nylon hands)
Among the work of skin,
pressed dead flowers, private moorings,
where the glass of water sits next to me,
and sits next to me, it sits sits,
the loyalty hinged on a nectared thing.
(No mouth)
How terrible,
there was no room for teeth,
no space large enough for the white-broken whale
to rest its anger
the animal lifted its skirts and walked across the porch to
the rabbit’s tiny door,
and you thought this was a waltz: clumsy crisis.
This was merely taffeta.
The fallen orchestra took its measurements and handed itself to you in parts, in movements, genres, squalid impersonations of the half-eaten men who did nothing more than sit in their cages and chew.
You, giving it all grace,
proposing the toast to anyone who had ever lost you.
I, raising my thick hand,
then, exhausted,
placing it gently
in the bedside drawer.