The green brocade, the layers, like a wall of spring—Ophelia, leonine in

tub—Bizet a drape of echo on the tile—masculine, the roar, perhaps while

shaving, head thrown back—Kurt, Michael, Reed—closer, red, the gold, our

clothed bodies, cushions of support—Sebastian, Cleopatra, Howard, Tom—

a spell of foliage below, huge, engorged, enveloping, no summer—the tux,

the tie, the white shirt on the hanger—Richard—hunger for the shot glass,

for the blue pinot—the time this designates, its pages—grigio, bells, white

smoke, the crowd now visible if thin—the ever absent diminution of the

distances—the wall, the chairs, the carpeting—the visible, the newly

nameable—in our midst, in our mist—the teal, the burgundy, the bronze,

the fade to ochre, umber, flattening of foreground/background/memory

imagination—Bill, the unknown center of the room—echo chamber of the

shell, the hollow ‘round which hardness curves—not gone alone—the gone

concurrent blond events, the time of velvet hand to glove—as if an opera—

as if a song—the tuneless mirror, spill of paper, crushed and wretched stems,

the dust—winter a fact, as usual, behind the fall—and what comes after

night that is not morning.

(i.m., W.M.—Vancouver, 2005)