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)