Until he wakes her, wanting to believe
that pain resolves to a stillpoint that is
as much a still point as any peace
to be had in heaven or in hell.
A quick glance up to the ceiling
then out the dirty kitchen window
to the small backyard lazing in sunlight,
the foul of the pane projecting
a momentary suspicion of smoke
till the eye settles its focus beyond.
Of course the terms are harsh
and no one would mildly put up for long
with a marriage conducted on such truce lines.
Admitting that the shattered china
snowflaked at the patio’s edge was her doing
was a concession he’d have sooner not been given.
Never to attain wisdom through suffering
but only the knowledge that comes, like aspirin,
in packets of quarter-strength, half-strength, buzz, and blur,
and is therefore no real knowledge
but that famous surrender: acceptance.
Still, some days arrive that are pixie-perfect
as a drunk’s comic barbiturate tango (‘to bed, to bed,
I’m going to bed, don’t wake me till the crow cocks’).
He looks over his shoulder with some injurious care,
peering down a gallery of photographs
to arrest his gaze upon the real thing.
There is a mannequin quality to her happy beauty
that invites a pervert’s lavish nurture.
Her silence is the way a pair of stockings
sounds as they fall.
Her eyes would open audibly if he were to follow
that weird half-formed thought and in its way
complete within its unripened blaze, of hands
(his? or whose?)
offering a lid-tilted jewelry box
of dainty gruesome marbles,
tomorrow’s eye-color hidden, shy,
not yet chosen.
So pick the perfect one while light floods
from the overflowing armoire,
pretending to see the beginning of angels.