Sunday, September 29, 2013

Stephen Ellis


Up

Lunar lady, the ivory
of your late afternoon
rises and makes
the day sweet, as fresh

milk, that blinds
my sight whenever
I look up. It is

dusk, late

sun, the devil
spread across a hot
tin roof. Yes,

youth will go on
forever, in our burning
nerve endings,

as weeds wrote
their names in
the sweat between us
where we

made love beneath
the tops and in the shade of
tall public grass

and the elongated ghosts of
encroaching shadow. No echo.
No. Nothing so mysterious

as physical sensation
as the light bleaches
the horizon it

combines with sky
as darkness falls,
not to idealized love
complete, but

as the sun is swallowed,
how I feel
ants crawl now along
the backs of my hands.


***


Reconnoiter

Sunlight gleams in
the dust on windowpanes,
running water
downstairs, as time

passes and employees
soundlessly close
the door against more

work. 7:30, no moon
but as mind wanders
over fields and down
alleys to take
its place. The radio

dials itself in for relief
against nostalgia
luminous with nervous
anxiety, driven

but not thinking
of former times
remembered place
by place, but simply

illuminated as always
in contrast to
the chaos of present
darkness enfolding.

I never stole anything
much, but needing
to feel clean, controlled
my sense of possession

in single sentences
on whose dependence
I declared my desperation.

***
***

No comments:

Post a Comment