the white dress

well, let’s be clear
since opacity’s so unfashionable—
i’ll be the sunlight breaking
stained glass silence, you
the rafter dust snaking off to sleep with pews:
you dance in me
and we, in the windowless redbrick
sanctuary across those rusted rails and
overgrowth, sighing for lonely history.
graffiti’s in the glamour
scrawled on walls so long unused.
“it’s kind of sad,” she said,
but it smacks of inescapability—
swirl with the arches! your light
flowing gown will contrast heavy
square brick columns in thick shadow: we’ll raise
such clouds, sweeping empty
newspapers in measured steps, dipping
to silent jazz and joy’s
tenacity: through these
musty odors let’s breathe
the sparkling sunlit air.




11/08
7/18/08 - the first two lines woke me up this morning pleading for more, to which i obliged while riding a train from nyc with a young gent who told me i had a gift for writing. but as with everything given to children, i wonder if i spend more time with the cardboard box it came in.