Vacillating
between calm troughs
of glinting pain
and crippling misery
having freshly faced the richness
of my ugliness
and of the things I have not let grow

The subtle unconscious emotions
magnetic
sewn to the dark sides
of sick impure happinesses

Amid the crashing and the chaos
of all this
dreams of early August
before Autumn wrought itself upon us
and released the pressures
my strength longed to contain
with the fool’s hope
that they would fade

I long for reason
to invade my heart
And yet more than anything

I longed to see her
in the dress
I gave her
from Thailand
from the garage sale
of the old traveled couple
made of silk
and frayed so slightly
like her hair, when strands have fallen
out of place
across her forehead

With the shimmering dark green
against her skin
she would cool her neck and her face
with the spanish fan
a birthday gift
as if she were gently, half-heartedly
imploring sin
to leave her alone
for only five minutes

When we were hundreds of miles away
when she was in New York
and I was in Georgia
and I could only picture her
I begged
to hear the fan
as it waved
in her slender hand

It’s dry sandy shifting
sounding every piece of it’s movement

Of the thin wooden spokes softly clacking
of the paper rustling
like the low static anthem of a television between channels
of the air brushed over her hair
black as the core of an eye

An imagination like memory
a thin vista
wrapped in Thai silk