Bruise Control
If there were a color
for that train wreck nocturne,
for that figment of innocence
burst from its Mason jar,
it would be marigold
like the armadillo bruise
on my chest.
If you were to tell me all muggers
are garbanzo beans-for-brains
toothless quacks smoking crank
to get it up or down or shoved off
the precipice,
would that exonerate their blades
or offer Crayola-blind salvation?
I think not.
His name was Proteus or Portugal—
some fractured trinity of syllables
too angular to grommet in the mind.
He was sweating. His watch cap hugged
his waxy head while his knife tip stopped
forever any gizmo of defense,
any lurch forward.
Concerto Longs to Be Fugue
Suppose a ship of soothsayers---
and suppose its white prow tastes of anise,
of mint---where boxes of arraignments
are piled high from too many improbable
Parises and Nickys, their smiles slipping
like fondant down the latest sacher torte,
their parades of sparklers
curving round a cove of paparazzi.
The court of poppies has convened
and each head of state lifted when the halo
of judges condemned these demoiselles
of any afternoon to solitary confinement.
A photographer was seen escorting Picasso
from the room, but he copped a glance back,
flicked winks from under his magenta hat.
None of this is true, of course,
but I’d advise you not to let on to that relative
from St. Louis. It would take more than a lie
to keep her from sliding down
the arch in her silk pointe shoes, sucking
on maple sugar soldiers, hearing the bells
of blinkered horses implacable as jurisprudence
in her adopted country.
