Memoir.
Out of the shadows from the lamp at night,
we'd see the lines of Braque on the walls.
Or where the shadow cut across the books, the free formality
of a pink Matisse.
My eye recalls the mustache of Rousseau
above my lover's smile.
The light delineates them so,
each innocent of style.
Plaiting my hair, the room would be at peace.
I recall him now, my lover of the academy.
How the page of my darling's ever changing choice
would be open to some unraveled evanescent verse
as he grumbled on, a man alone with his voice.
Oh, not one word in an ordinary way to tell us
meanings reverse, that the back of the hand
is stranger to the palm of the hand, just the unmindful voice
taking its single journey divorced from danger.
Out of the shadows of the street by day
I see the rain at the gutted curb
or where the fountains play in the circular masonry, a verb
without release, the spew of a stone cherub.
My heart searches for some ingenuous grace
and waits outside the room where all things cease.