LARGO DESOLATO

LARGO DESOLATO

While drying my face in the shower mirror 

I cursed you because each time the phone rings 

that click severs me like stilettos

Maybe it isn't your X who hangs up each time;

but once she screamed how you beat her

and was I satisfied? As if I had done the act.

Once you and I licked sweet poems,

anchoring them firmly with stamps,

pony-expressing our hearts with postage due.

Damned if I didn't curse you  

and the mirror fell off the wall

dividing my face like the San Andreas Fault.

And I don't know if it's you or me

who is destined to serve time.

Blame it on a bad crop of chardonnay,

unseasonable rain, a ruined harvest—

but life is like that.

We're experiencing a drought

and no one is conserving water,
 not even the moon.

When my mother's lover died

I hated him in the way only a 12-year-old 

who saw the ugly evidence, could.

The way he used her, unforgivable even in death. 

But I had to allow my mother a refuge of memory 

resurrected in her fulcrum time of need.

Grief polishes the facts until they outshine themselves. 

But silver tarnishes in sunlight,

in drawers and in the cavities of desire.

5/9/90

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