The city inside my head
keeps its Sweet Face down
like a Japanese fan in the hand
of a dead woman whose ghost
dances in air,
untethered.
I am an ocean on the edge of a nightmare,
a horse gone headlong,
an unseen hand hanging up the cruisers,
mid-air,
sirens sounding like Stratocasters,
wah-wah pedals at patrolmen's feet.
In the after-time, when you had gone,
the tall grass afternoons went on and on.
There was a yellow butterfly and a glass of gin,
and a thorn in the soft place where you had been.
The nights were cool, the stars were cold,
and together we turned slowly old
on a blue and green revolving ball
until love was dust, then nothing at all.
The city inside my head
keeps its Sweet Face down
like a Japanese fan in the hand
of a busker's monkey whose chattering forms
these poems, this after-time,
this image of the sun behind closed eyes
hidden and
glittering.
________
for Sunday Muse #168. Thanks to Hedge for telling me how to ditch the double spacing. Apologies for the varying type size in this. I can't fix it.