"Portrait with Flashlight" is for my friend
the poet Henri Coulette, and it originated
with something he told me about his adolescence in New Mexico.
He said he learned about life from the period
when he worked as an usher in the moving picture
house on Saturday afternoons.
And his best known poem, best poem in some ways,
is a poem called "The War of the Secret Agents."
That's referred to in passing.
"Portrait with Flashlight."
What lonely isles you prowled in search of the forbidden,
blinking your usher's torch, firefly of the balconies.
And when you found it, love, it was
to pure French horns soaring above the plains
of Saturday's westerns.
The defiant eyes laughing into the sudden beam,
the soft Mexican curses, the stains, the crushed corsages.
Poor spy, there's no disguise.
Your heart's as dark as theirs was,
and it speaks with the same broken accent.
Those flowers, they blossom again now,
tender buds of migraine, souvenirs,
and you call them poems.
Poems with hair slicked back, smelling of bay rum, sweat,
and hot buttered popcorn.
Furtive illuminations.