Chasing my darling through the snow-lit trees
to a room in a realm where rain always rained,
I knelt outside, spying love through the blind
and fingering the pane, its cracked glass
splitting my view between dress and undress,
light breaking from skin emerging ungowned,
unblue, unvelveted, my sight unstained
save for that other between her and my eyes.
Imagine my shock, my severest charge
short-circuiting broad waking dreams of marriage
with wet lips full of syllables that spill
like flung neon through rain calling Motel,
a sign, like light cast out of her forehead,
how willingly she could be spirited.