by James Maynard
1/
Particular, with a forty-second street skimmer
Pendant on the toe of your stiletto
Which lifts, emerald, into the carcinogenic heaven
Above Gene Kelly’s eyes. Yet when you move
Cosmic — world & form splashing into singularity.
A figure turning a figure, turning.
What is seen then not seen, a flash of the eternal
Then akimbo again, collapsing stars.
2/
The palace of your eyes a dark confrontation.
Even the symbol from your hand an apotheosis.
Even the grain of your skin a military tribunal
Or an insult you send with your compliments.
In the pout of your lips a sleeping snarl.
Or the sequested gray within those iron locks.
Never a move was made that wasn’t linear, even
Your end of dour day slump was sharp.
3/
Like my mother, the poise she had when she sat
Watching you & Fred Astaire on a stage
Set to look like Central Park in purple & white
Halogen, set as a mirror to the other.
The cassette moaning in the player, my sister & I
Lounging in the green shag and the smell
Of hamburger soup steaming all above
The tape-worn orchestra, but you never stopped
4/
The god of these geometries. Living altar.
Like an old fat coat, and you shuck the lapels
Sliding red into a form so hard to see,
They wrote chemistries to define you.
The blue lit ghosts in the gray afternoons,
We watched you slide in the ether
Like an idea that chooses the cellophone
Or the sphere, to end woven in a fracture.