Around a tabletop scattered with ruins, the abbey
of an ate cake, one wall still standing
but angling in a bit, crumb comme rock dotting the sandscape
of a handmade plate.
What a party it were and one played the birthday boy.
O October! Seeds of spent summer
plashing the weather vane. Late the sky
shifting to lavender, a touch of rain
in the pained face of she who had been betrayed
by the celebrant. Now holding a flute
of champagne and tipping a rim
toward Louise, a tiny tap-tap, chin-chin,
a hollow toast, the host rising
to say a few words, a wish for wonderment
All Year Long. What a thing!
But oh! how unlike marble was that face.
How beautiful, if Sorrow had not made
Sorrow more beautiful than Beauty’s Self.
. . .
Now she rose and touching a fingertip to her cold lips
gestured for silence to fall
under the canopy that covered them,
that affirmed their right to be each in their own
flamboyant drama. None could be released now—
not by syncope nor the light tap that disturbs
the hypnotic’s shallow nap.
In other words, the boat could not be capsized
as long as someone listened.