R. M. VAUGHAN

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“Mais, une fois qu’on a commence’ de vivre, ca n’en finit plus.”

-Anne He’bert, La Robe Corail

yes, I could be transparent, have no more than 2 meanings

for every sentence, smother      the small inhalations

in duck-lined beds  (instinctual)

but I am not

tired, only some part of me, the corner of intellect

reserved for newspapers, educated company, family fights

won’t shut up, won’t misread for me, play blind man’s bluff or

any game with kissing and shut eyes      won’t say  –  this means

nothing. I am safe-

from harm, I take baby steps      dangle limbs over balconies

sit on cane back chairs made for light men in linens      even dance

fat-legged, convinced of rhythm      but from love all manner

and logic, knoves if necessary      nothing closes me, nothing

to danger, a smile pulled from the eyes, where smartness lives

or a wrist, the left, folding surrendered air in cross-cuts      language

for events microscopic, just as loud      but to love

no tricks no practiced feints of hip or cape, no tangles of scarves

to swirl over the very idea      because love happened, once, and

like anything charming      love was just another language, another dress,

a sneaky link of party half-grins      spread chair to chair, room to room

sogning the trickster from his mark