She blinks away the day, loosens
the knot on her robe. Later that night,
     maraschinos in Manhattans
black dress and black tie at La Bohème

but for now she takes him in whole,
stretched on the bed. Shadows grow
long       cast nets of amethyst
over the room    a twist of dusk

makes the familiar exotic. As she nears
-  he fragments  -  becomes a shoulder
       a hand          She sees
the man he was, one never met,


perched on a stool     aura of smoke
and whiskey     the casual drape
of arm over the waist of his guitar.
He sings to her alone, in the midst

of the bar crowd, begins the amber
melt of her insides. He is an ear
     an eye     tuned only to her.
Approaching on a city sidewalk,

collar turned to the wind,
                    he breathes beat poets
down her spine. She becomes
a fold     a crease     a subtle change

of contour as legs and arms open
wide, at ease in her vulnerability.
They hide beneath daisies and tall
grasses     love young and long.

She in her black dress
                           he in his black tie
insulated in arias, they drift
        a single mind     a molecule.

~

ERWA Sept. '03