(in memoriam C.H. Sisson, 1914-2003)
My soul was not capacious
nor was the room the spacious
length my narrow lechery
required, the clumsy archery
that turned my wallet inside out,
a purge of coins, bills, and doubt.
My heart desired to be kind,
strained admirably within the bind
of what she’d so serenely sold.
Stern, shy, far too old
to tempt her with a smile
or offer anything resembling guile.
A chancre like a loosened sequin
caught my eye but could not weaken
the headstrong rise to action
of lust satisfied and in that satisfaction
some detail of commerce and venture,
the fore and aft of phobia, the censure
of surrender. Light on a dirty pane
was comfort twice accomplished, for rain
had fallen on us where she stopped me,
opening her jacket that I might see
the wet staccato of her ribs,
her nipples heightened with lipstick nibs
till they were red and edible
to the hungry eye, the fungible
ghost I was, whose last caprice
had long since fled to die in peace.
Love is that remote island in the distant
storm that comes upon us in an instant.
Remembering the glory that might undo disaster
the cat brings a mouse to its master.