Chamber Duet II

 See how I love you darling

skittering down the rotten leaf path with a lamp

wearing my delicate gloves and old cardigan

against the chill and damp?

Don't hand me shit about loving sailors now

with their faces like pale wrinkled moons

floating up to sing you shanteys

while you percolate in shallows like a wax Quadroon.

My frail sweetheart, what's become of you?

You used to gild heaven just by looking up.

Now, if we touch, it's with a cypress branch

to roll love's body in the muck.

We really cared once, you know it's true

with every movement meant to please.

Now your sailors adore you with gassy grins

and stultifying ease.

I'll use tiny clippers on a driftwood cello

a balsa fake to echo and bore

a waterside horror to mock two biddies

our love song evermore.

______

for Dverse Poetics "After Saint Valentine left the building."