Painting by Amy Stein
AL FRESCO CAFÉ POEMS #224:
RENATA’S POEM: THE BIRTH OF THE AUTHOR #61
The arrival intoxicated with fumes
From the anticipation of departure.
The stucco façade
Had 1920 eyelashes and sambucca
Reddened
By al fresco pioneer sunlight.
It was the children’s do-re-mi that brought
The terror.
Her hair was said to be like the coattails
Of extended vowels in a soprano’s
Fin de siècle floriferous coloratura.
But in the time of chalk
the pause of the pulse was purloined.
The parasol morey-eeled its martini,
became a low squeak on Mondays.
All perception is metaphor, and in her parlor
The parable of forced marches prevailed.
She was the glaze that rung the skull
in the campanile.
The beloved’s name was written in the margins
Of every page of the book called the Bible.
Departure with its lips replaced her;
Phone numbers no longer suffered.
Duane Locke
Posted over on Argotist Online
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