tant mieux | poems & chants

exquisite

2008-02-02T10:03:00.003-08:00

How I heard your voice scratched dry with some blight, dry of light.

No measure of lumen that could rival the greyness of the day –

No desk made of sun.

Instead a world cloud obscured, cumulous, and threatening.

Well, you always did want to predict – to divine.

Now you see great storms ahead.

Weather unfit for a king.

Have you learned yet that the beneficent too often loose?

That in such dark matters, it is black-hearted, Machiavelli

who prevail but by what means and to what end, I cannot say.

I would offer you such exquisite relief.

I would tell my father Zeus to push aside the low-ceilinged skies.

To strike carefully at those with aim with his blue-electric bolt with fair or unfair warning.

I would meet you at the river Lethe and hold you as you leaned back,

as you dipped and forgot all that ailed, allowed to begin again –

a new soul from the guff

at last recognizing me as your cousin Aphrodite, Cytherea,

born, wed, to war with Mars at my side – always your protectant.

Full of storm and fury; signifying everything.

dos gefelt mir |

2008-02-02T10:01:00.000-08:00

Always you are going.
This after the great sin of arrival;
tish tish tish.
une fois, deux fois? plus?... tu viendras avec moi
and god did you love it, and in the inbetween you dreamt of it,
a fugue state of variations,
craving the partita of my kiss, never-ending, ever-yielding.
The giddy summer-solstice and the musk trees scented afternoon,
the privet waxing filling the air with its you full-bloom,
drawn in by the current of the river,
you whispered, I don’t know when to stop,
and shyly I gave over, taking you in.
Sweet pea, little fig –
you moved your palm across your face
“You – scented of flowers, summer things,
Maydala, maydala… es gefelt mir…I am for you…”
I blushed fathoms deep, the only witness the maple tree,
there on the iron bench on the promonotory.

all these years

2008-02-02T08:37:00.000-08:00

All I have to say to say is do it and you do.
You speak to me of times when perhaps this won’t be possible;
perhaps we will grow old and then… then we will be sorry
So we live in the moment; insatiable.
Children who cannot get enough of each other as they play.
He, his reedy arms carry heavy buckets of wet sand while she decorates
their soon-to-be castle with silver-dollar shells crushed
mother-of-pearl that catch the 100 degree sun.
I sit down to write something meaningful and all I can think is this: mud-pies.
Two children making upside down buckets of them on a beach.
A fortress wall ~
How they can spend their day digging deep narrow-handed channels
while their backs are slowly sunburned while their hair blondes in the sun
Time is lost – they have no sense of it, it moves with the in, the out of each wave
until the tide draws near, filling moats, flowing froathily
beneath bridges as they shore up edges.

2008-02-02T08:34:00.001-08:00

the typewriter bell's sweet ring

2008-02-02T08:21:00.000-08:00

We are easily alone.
Safely surrounded by teacups - they wobble on their saucers-
the background clink of silverware,
and the silent touch
of your spoon as it moves through the liquid,
touches the lip of your cup soundlessly now,
my tongue thick with slow-dripping
clover honey shared.

Remember the typewriter’s barreled-roll
a silver-shift barred slide
as it glides across yesterday’s plain paper,
the sweet carriage-bell's ring -

All rituals must begin in the right key,
or else we stand to lose the fine partita's thread
I have, we have, long chosen and when?
Who will be our final judge and arbiter?
We never did put much stock in ordinary absolution.
Oh, shattered green-glass iris -
your loaded words unspoken - sometimes...

Our shared quiet dialect
now yet whispered with a deeper hush.
It is against such things as this
that I measure my certainty.
We leaned, looped-armed, my body
braced against yours, blonde head resting
on your shoulder – freewheelin’ -
any avenue, alley, city, place,
we repeat what we know without knowing.

Tomorrow, you halve a fruit, take a bite, hand it over
and I will eat where you have eaten.
In this we deeply kiss, our feet lightly resting.

We never tell a soul.

song for a backward lover

2008-02-02T08:19:00.000-08:00

A few notes really – Satie & still so much.

Piano-tapered fingers, ivory-spatulate, each note

so gently coaxed, a seduction above all,

a shy melody, a quiet secret, unspoken heard only by two –

a nearly not to have been; perhaps then a back-drop for a backward lover.

The sound of an almost inaudible sigh – but i heard it, I heard it…

caught it… when you leaned in… so definite…

and then...

How to accompany that?

A partita, Bach e-minor,

silver violin-string thing.

Do not look for the conductor.

There is no guide but the self –

this and the piano, that violin –

each timid in its way.

If one counts to three

will both pick up and strike the note on four?

Or does one wait, untrusting of the other… and take a step back?

At one time you heard Satie…

That first movement

What is it that your heart said?

Or is that to him now -

your heart, your ears, the all of you has grown deaf.

song of songs | revisited

2008-02-02T08:17:00.000-08:00

I came to your God; even bowed before His cold, stone altar.
Sat in my September birthday twilight
as the blue stained-glass shone and winked
as if to say, “So, you’ve come back after all…”
the holy books whispering in the pews, “I told you so…”
I took it all in until the unshakable grief shook me
& I gently rocked side-to-side, face hand-buried,
and there came such jerked hard sobs.
They echoed on the rebound,
wrapped around the column where, two weeks prior
I had taken your confession, held your own grief to me.
Now that pew was vacant – you were gone,
and all I heard was a broken woman sounding out
some unknowable, untouchable pain –
before I realized it was me.
Me with my blonde hair coming undone;
pale cheeks glistening with tears – a true Madonna,
dressed in my blacks, while outside the sun shone.
When the carillon rang it was only worse –
for on that day, I had taken you to that tower
Let you pull the bell’s clapper and it licked the side,
& tolled high above Manhattan at the off-hour, unexpected –
at our whim because I let you in.
But on this day – my birthday – the bell tolled only the passing of time.
So stupidly I half hoped you might arrive: knowing I would be there.
No matter what you promised in so many private moments –
You never did come..
I lost my faith at 1:06 p.m. on Fifth Avenue.
Turned to the Song of Songs just to see.
No, not because it is your Good Book,
but because it is a real and true love poem,
& such things I found - I wished I had not looked.
It was all there:
The Rose of Sharon, the figs you last spoke of,
the pomegranates, the scented bed of green, green grass,
her doe eyes, his hair black as raven’s, and this:
“…in the streets and in the broad ways I will seek him
whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.”
I let my tears fall; each splash warping that fine thin paper,
wondered when the last time anybody had really read this.
Surely not you.
No. These pages had long been unturned.
None would see my tear-splash,
and none save a few heard my September afternoon cries.
Yes, a few passed-by, looked and wondered.
A young rector began his approach,
saw the hate - then retreated

So this is my Song of Solomon, my Song of Grief, my Song of Fury.
Tell me, what kind of God creates such love then snaps it in two?
I brought you to Him and He took you away.
For your God is a jealous God – If nothing, you've learned that by now.
And so He wins because you let Him.
He is your God now. Do not pray for me.

12:34 p.m.

2008-02-02T08:16:00.000-08:00

The last of summer’s persimmon hangs tentatively on the ocean-tree.
When last heard your voice echoed through my tears,
soon turned to laughter, this before the heart’s slaughter.
The geese have nosed the fruit about the once-warm grass.
The day I told you about the ocean grey, thick with current,
yet smooth as glass.
I remember that, your molasses voice.
Such have turned our lives, our obituaries.
Where once there was love there is nothing but
the cold clang of masts,
the first chill of autumn,
and everywhere, even in the mirror, the awful dappled green of your eyes.

as you like it

2007-12-20T16:06:00.000-08:00

Quick, Shhhhh, do not say it.
Do not hit that panic button
the one that seeks an I love you
the quick carriage return, the mirrored signal flash back
between my balcony and yours
the bright spark that parses Paris all the way to you…
I saw the minister, Saint Sulpice, confessed
such sin… Where to begin?
When was the moment exact
that I felt myself falling? When I dove
into the moss pools of your eyes and I swam
not coming up for air for so long
that when I did at last it was with such a gasp
that I heard it, did you?
tried to stop, seal my bowed-pout with honey.
You left me sticky-lipped and glowing –
beautiful in the moment…
a rising apricot rouge to my cheeks
as we sat on the bed sharing of the same spoon
I took you in whole
wondered if you would, wanted same
to know the apricot-incense tase of each
limbed freckle, white legs, these breasts,
ginger-ivory thighs; you would never forget.
Year later, I caught the scent of you;
perfect privet, mown grass and I knew then how
easily I would moan, gasp to your touch, to your words, voice,
How now when I see you
I try to hide
feel the blush-rush, the sap-rise
Must move my hand, finger to my mouth
Quick before I cry out your name,
Before I say it just as you like it.

brick hijab

2007-12-20T16:04:00.000-08:00

For you only I drop this hijab: for you only, I let it all go:
modesty, privacy, morality? Is what we do
then lacking in all value. What would Kant
make of this? Would he too partake or would he
say Do unto others as they do unto you –
God you, I would….
some Categorical Imperative.
My love for you imperative.
It knows no bounds. Love, I cannot help this.
I have fallen such heights, still I am exalted
now higher than Mohammad, me lifted by prayer
ten thousand Amens, you pray for me the Torah,
whose pages remain untouched,
each day we make our love,
Fridays for hours – and so it is written, you tell me
And so it must, will be. The book says so.
We shall follow each word to the letter, backward serifed in our tongue
how you lick around, about me, there are so many ways –
I never knew until … I came, found your easy ways,
fell to my knees, prayed I would give you up for Lent
I found you there, we half-Jews in prayer,
we in some Episcopal paradise, we were lifted high on frankincense
as the thurible chain swang and the smoke snaked about my leg,
as your knee pressed against mine and we prayed
the evening vespers that our prayer be set forth –
What did you prayer for that afternoon?
I prayed for you… for you that is…
For you to take me, to shake me, and god yes,
I was all that is blasphemous, and I was not repentant
I was a sinner, not a saint, still you polished my halo
and I shone, glowed and laughed bright and white
until I learned to build this love, brick by brick by brick
until I was sure in it, until our temple was at last solid.

i thought you should know

2007-12-20T15:58:00.000-08:00

You alone are my refuge, did you know
does it frighten? or like the deer, do you stand still, near.
so easily, not easily you come
uninvited, a surprise so welcome
I knew you from that moment when the clock swiped
and the second-hand wiped the time
and your knee brushed mine
that all bets were off and we were moving
yet standing still in place
barely treading water, yet never drowning
Still, I would dive steady in this love, my pockets so curiously empty
no grey stones to weight me down
yet I would give a thousand petit morts over to you
a hundred little deaths of your name over and over
Never once have I held a gaze when I came but if asked
Yes I would. Stare into those flecked eyes…
at first me flit shy before the moment passes, such
intensity begins as I rise as I rise as I rise to such heights
as I follow your lead when you tell me you simply cannot dance
yet so simply you lead, I follow your garden path
the waxy-green scent of privet, it leads me all the way to you.

2007-12-20T15:51:00.003-08:00

such things

2007-12-20T15:51:00.001-08:00

Such things I would do ~
overcome this shyness in a moment
To show my true trust
there is nothing I would not be
to keep this love, I dip, I dive
a line, straight to you, strong vector.
Do you find your heart throbs ~
does it beg for the slow-relief, double tango
that slow, giddied dance that falls to the cosine
I’ll ride your steady algorithm to such ecstatic states
aware of the quick shutter-flutter of all your all seeing eye
I am utterly undone in so many ways
So it is I give up, give over to this fugue
repeat, a private litany heard only by two – me-you
your name, name, name
Twice I tried to give you up for Lent
& twice I failed, fell to my knees in not-so-quiet
prayer, I was utterly unrepentant,
lit candles from Notre dame to Sacre Coeur
From Saint Thomas to Saint Xavier’s NYC
a lit path, it led straight to you
to such holy place.
We make our peace on hallowed ground
Find at last release, a thousand sights indefinable,
once hushed, now I am the dove outside your window,
she who coos just for you.
I am that one.

grand subjection

2007-12-20T15:50:00.000-08:00

So it is the grand subjection
we fall soft sweet to circumstance
drawn by and to the sea-tide pull of the cream-thick july moon
I am raw-kneed from such prayers of the ascetic
the want of not wanting,
Love, i am weary of these pleas
i do in full-knowledge of the want -
that which cannot be prayed away
So you come –
and when you arrive, you arrive…
draw near, closer still in the frankincense afternoon
and i hear a full peale of bells ringing your name -
three hours of you
how the clapper licks each smooth bell’s side
my alto five in right in time to your tenor eight
how we move in rhythm and rhythm
until the method is right, every variation of eight
simple math this love
i offer myself up to this providence
give myself over – cry your name - a dulcet lilting Amen
an evening sacrifice for only you to see –

zero-love

2007-12-20T15:49:00.001-08:00

The seer-sucker high-flood cuffs such loafers
& these blonde-grey bobs sheared to perfection
for the Valiumed who bed down nightly
beneath linen-lavender eyelet sheet
scented by the Northeast wind, the day’s
clean laundry, pinned, of course, by the ‘help’.
How you’d marvel to see me negotiate this world
Such ribboned latch-key kid putting on her Locust
Valley best who out-snobs the snobs, Stanford whites
out-whites the whites, Aryan they, if only they knew
me half-Jew – what a gas…
Quick send this unclean thing to the Mikvah,
the holy font baptismal, something with water anyway.
You too a Jew, so tell me, where do we fit in
I can play this game.
Volley forever. Smash the ball over the net.
I charge, rushing forward.
Match, fifteen, tennis, love.
I knock down the walls.
Hop a freight train straight to you.

Newport, July 15

summer fugue

2007-12-20T15:48:00.000-08:00

You speak to me of fugues as if I did not know -
tonight they distance me even from myself
why I am surrounded by those ladies who lunch!
These men in their blue flannel jackets, their liberty
of London ties, their white-buck loafers, tightly laced –
a distance even I cannot parse – the Jew in me chomps at the bit.
The now vacant self – you are gone.
I wait before the promise of an organ
he plays a fugue, Bach, g Major, a fugue, partita.
You tell yourself chaos this. coincidence –
that chaos is random, unpredictable. This I bring
into your life. I am then unwanted, the pariah,
when really Chaos is really no more than a series of variables
repeating – a pattern forming, the Lorenze diagram
It forms a spread-wing butterfly
you breathe, sigh, cry, and I am, I am.
This night here extant with the promise of Vierne
You could like his wild organ, savor that passion you tell me you lack,
you could later make-love to me,
come at the high-note apex of the symphony, timpani
No.
When all is said and done you say, We are not animals.
That is right. We do not rut like rabbits.

We make love gently.
We approach with such caution, this distinguishes, we verbalize, connect.
Yet still, what are we if not refined savages
whose hearts beat a wum-pum warrior drum of love?
Knowing the what of the want?
Let us imbibe and congratulate
Let us take the High Road
Let us say it was all for naught in the end
Let me not falter to some death-parlor organ grinder music
I am awake
Let me sleep not sleep
Let me greet the dawn, no longer weep
Let me know with absolute certainty this thing I never had
Let me give myself over to this fugue…

temple

2007-12-20T15:46:00.000-08:00

You are near but not so near
So tell me, do you hear my cries through your delicate palms
feel the vibrations those years’ long prayers, these weeks,
these responses to our private itany.
Palm-against-palm me to you pray with me
I will be your virgin
kneeling at your feet
in the pew thighs gently touching as the thurible chain rattles
and the frankincense smoke snakes an coils about my
skirted thigh a snake that once whispered something
now incense such places me
in on thees high-vaulted ceilings, stained glass cathedral
she said, ‘your body is a temple; let no man enter who is not holy.’
you, you see yourself as a sinner.
for this you play keepaway
still you covet eyes greedily taking in what you see
you tell me, Betrayal always comes wth a kiss, Biblically,
speak Shakespearean Ides of March of wanting, jealousy, shame
your body is a temple
let him be holy
I decide such things for me – not you.
So I chose and Betrayal comes without so much as a kiss,
despite you and your very Good Book.
How it simplifies the broadstrokes –
You follow the black lines
keep your easy mid-life virtue
but keep it and run.

ellipsis

2007-12-20T15:45:00.000-08:00

In my mind you are an ellipsis.
a dot dot dot
a thought unfinished
an action taken just not seen through
so then we let it stand
STET
this or we transpose
you be me, I’l be you.
How would that be?
Neutral? A gearshift frozen midpoint
these firm bony hands they cannot shift…
I would if I could, I you would help
if if if
more dot dot dots
I’m told if you want a thing badly enough
goodly enough?
then you will get it.
The fight may be uphill yet still.
I know of this one hill in The Berkshires where
all laws of gravity are defied
that if you put the gear in neutral
the car climbs the hill but backward.
God’s little trick of physics.
Surely we have our equation.
The variables long thought, tossed, turned
The … between us that leaves us speechless,
shy, ashamed to admit the what of the want.

arbitrary hop-scotch (time)

2007-12-20T15:44:00.000-08:00

tongues that tip-toe wrap before the full-on
kiss
of each word that comes so easily so hard…
miss we two I do me-you your sweet pea
such things
they amaze and we do as one does
hold on until the next and the after
searching always the calendar arbitrarily yet still
the clock chimes the blessed hello-hours, the awful grey-goodbyes
the touch that refuses to yield to such partings.
None of that is sweet. Only sorrow there.
It is linear this.
I need I want to find always in my greed to spend
more time
alone
with you
I am never as at peace as when we are alone
together.

welcome | part of the tant mieux project

2006-10-24T16:51:00.000-07:00

It's all context. Any city can be romantic, lively, provided you are with the right person, the timing, circumstance, etc... and of course, conversely, it can be awful or worse than that, just sad if things do not fall into place. Maybe melancholy or bitter without the sweet.

Paris is not a place i would want to be without a lover. Of course, it is a beautiful place to be, and no doubt, i would find my way there, and find myself crossing Pont Neuf and crossing rue Mazarine and visiting the old haunts, but all said and done, i would be returning at the end of the day to an empty hotel room and another night of the prospect of dinner alone (which at home seems fine, although i am married, i can conceive of it being fine here), sending poscards back to friends not with me on the trip and so on while i sit in my room (again, read, singular) and smoking cigarettes and drinking sweet Badoit. It doesn't sound appealing to me.

I like the idea of independent travel and i've done it. I've been all over the world and always enjoyed it and i don't think that it's necessary to have a partner at all. I think Paris would be perfectly negotiable even with a same sex friend (assuming you are heterosexual, if not, then nevermind, because you can apply the going with a lover theory or going alone theory - either/or), but regardless, while you'd still have fun, it would not be the same.

Nope. Paris is made for lovers.

Having just returned, and being in love (which is good and sometimes painful and one thrives, ideally, and sometimes, one is wounded, othertimes, a hand is held out - but love can be the balm and the sting, but always, always love is worth it. The rose worth the thorns, right?) - but being in that place, you can't escape love in Paris. Even in the bloody Metro, i came across a solo violinist playing Bach or someone who sounded like and it was heartbreaking because it took me back. You see, that's just the trouble with Paris: it has all of these connections, like silver threads that cut through the heart and generally that's okay because they run like silver threads, but pull on that thread and it can cut sharp like a knife or blade. Paris, above all, for me anyway, is a city that for anyone, makes you long - even if you are with a lover, you long - you yearn. You yearn because the city itself seems itself to be yearning, in love itself (its lover the big secret), but one senses that even the city identifies. When it rains, the sky cries for us. Funny how the weather can be so fitting of our mood.

All said though, I can say this of any city to anyone in love - the work here happens to have been written in Paris, but by no means does that mean that work cannot be written elsewhere or that you can't find it elsewhere, because you can. I do hope you'll visit Tant Mieux where there you will find a broad range of work, including more poetry, articles, a whole section on Bob Dylan and more.

Thanks for visiting part of the Tant Mieux Project - i hope you'll visit our other sites as well.

Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti
Autumn, 2006
www.tantmieux.squarespace.com

get out of here the man said

2006-10-24T15:19:00.000-07:00

09.15.06. Montparnasse. Paris. France.

Get out of here the man said.
You’ve been here too long, and I couldn’t disagree.
I saw the gun on his hip, his badge, blue uniform…
The oxymoron; homeland security.
The clock ticked. A moment perhaps, then I knew.
He was right. I did not belong.
I didn’t even want to.
A country of cowboys and pop –
all gunslingers and swagger.
The teenagers of the world – freedom a joke.
An imposition – a command.
Circumstance keeps me bound.
I’d gladly fly the coop. A wish and a prayer.
A true poet, I can be at times, impractical to the last -
but I am a true pragmatist to the last.
In the end, it’s all mathematics.
It is an If / Then equation ….
and we are stuck on the If.
No, the end not in sight.
I know, this - I studied.
I watch as I slip fast down the hypotenuse -
listen as Pythagoras laughs.

out on a limb - or balcony

2006-10-24T15:16:00.000-07:00

09.15.06, Paris, Montparnasse

The black balcony railing was only a foot from the window.
This of course didn’t stop him
hovering dangerously near the ledge,
the Paris cars fuming dangerously far below,
the glint of sun on those black glasses.
He was, in that moment, invincible. Or thought so anyway.
The girl of the moment smiled a gummy smile,
muttered something in French.
She was the entertainment before lunch, he said.
You could tell they’d just met.
Likely fucked or would.
Would is my guess.
Of course, I only saw this through someone else’s lens, yet still…
I could taste the wine on his breathe –
a kiss tasting of white wine, summer, France.
I couldn’t tell if I found such behavior attractive or not.
I think I preferred him behind his typewriter, tea at his side.
This or smoking and strumming that guitar
with the wiry strings about the neck.
Still, however you cut it, he was all charisma and charm –
of course, talent and genius –
but that goes without… Insouciant, pouting.
Youth usually wasted on the young – but not him.
And the one thing l I envied as I watched was this:
That chance she had after they fucked or did what they did –
was just to lie beside him and count
each of those wild, mild brown curls –
Of course, it would take a lifetime, but isn't that the point?
It would be a start anyway.
Of course, I know she didn’t. Intuition tells me so.
Like him, I am a poet. And like him, I would not blow it.
This is where she missed.
This is where I would have hit.

this i do

2006-10-24T15:15:00.000-07:00

It is important this night.
Not like the others in America in which
I play the role of the quiet house frau wife.
Here, in France, I am your equal.
It is the whole package that counts: that is, me, you.
Jean, like us, is a writer. And unlike Americans, he treats me as such.
That said, there are subtleties of course.
I am a woman: he a man.
This changes the equation – slightly.
And although this is mostly your show,
I am a quiet violin playing in the background – a dulcet partitia.
The pale silk of my dress drapes the curve of each breast –
My legs taper to silver-ballet slippered feet,
My blonde-bobbed hair, raspberried lips are just so;
On this night, I am, yes your wife, but your lover, your friend, but your equal.
My backward pout pursed speaking French,
carefully doling out each word – so much better this year.
This he respects, still, his blueberry eyes give a sideways glance,
an acknowledgement of the feminine, some charm.
“I really, really like these shoes,” he says admiring my legs
I become “Ma belle Sadi.”
I make him laugh. I make him smile. I put it on. This I do for you.
This exchange is wholly European – never American.
You know, most of all, my love, all of this careful attention is for you, of course.
What I hate about your country is that where I go with you there,
I am never equal, just a stranger, never equal, why hardly a woman,
the men hardly men, me not even a poet, hardly noticed at all,
merely a distraction to keep the other house-frau busy
while she tells me of her ailments… she speak of her latest pills, ills.
Therein lies the difference.
You ask me why I don’t like it here.
Among many, I give you one reason here.

heading south

2006-10-24T15:14:00.000-07:00

09.18.06. Langlois. rue St. Lazare, Trinite. Paris. France

Tomorrow we wake and head south.
An annual journey that sees us passing hayfields of brilliant gold,
soft, gentle hills of impossible green – four hours to Pressigny,
where the smooth-manored walls are high, white chalk, grey,
The narrow pavement cobblestone and marble dust.
So vividly I recall how three-years prior we climbed
each small step to the top of that tower,
my pale silk dress, transparent, knee-fluttering, gentle,
and how in that moment you whispered soft to my ear.
Not fifteen minutes later I stood with you shyly in the cool of the bedroom
the balm of September breeze as it breathed through the window,
and how so reverently you undressed me, silently,
my alabaster skin, freckled and I blushed.
In the sheets you took me and brought alive such places
of which I did not know and I trembled to your touch
Nervous as a lily in the spring.
I was yours as you took me, as you took me, as you took me
and as you did, I heard the sound and the song and the cry
of my own voice as if hearing it for the first time ever.

choice and absolution

2006-10-24T15:13:00.000-07:00

09.18.06., Paris. rue St. Lazare, Trinite, Paris. France

You has no opinion of either.
The soft tap-shoes or the gentle ballet-slippers,
sweet ribbons that tie about the ankles.
Either / Or.
Some blankness, lack of feeling or thought. Care.
The problem here, after twelve plus years, I know too well your eye for detail.
Recall how you once recounted the exact cast of Amy’s skin, hair.
The hang of her pony-tail – even her shoes – clothes.
(white pumps, floral dresses, jeans, white-oxford,
Converse sneakers, white pumps sometimes)
Others? One lover, also in France, with rounded breasts
with nipples so subtle you could hardly make them out.
Another – she of the red scarf. We all know of the red scarf.
We even visited the building where they finally broke the spell and fucked.
A cold and broken hallelujah, wasn’t that the line? Well then, Hallelujah.
I never did find out if anything was resolved. Does it matter?
Of course, we are not to look in the past. It’s not mine anyway.
But my tap-shoes – This is different. This is my past.
These are an echo of my past – so this then different.
Yes, my lover - savior, protector, kindred, and cousin, that’s the worst part.
It was he who untied those black ribbons.
It was he who left me barefoot on the stair.
It was he who said “Shhh.” It was he guarded our secrets.
It was both who kept them.
He whose eyes like mine, patina green, pin-prick black.
And in that gaze I found recognition. Permission.
Not narcissism this. Just belonging. Knowing.
It was he who had a preference, and each time he chose, he chose me.
And in this affirmation, and yes, my cousin.
You hate me for this. You want I feel the should and ought.
The sin of it. Some need of confession.
I never needed it. I have no need now.
The only absolution I sought was there all along –
in each kiss, a prayer, a thousand hushed amens.