Life hangs in air like a translucent weight
ponderous, dull brown, tepid air of spring
laments through ornamental landscapes,
clustering around my head, grunting oracles.
Lesions and liaisons, phoney fellowships;
no one traces the fading brightness on
rosy neck, slow decay of fostering heart.
Caught between the crumbling beams of
a majestic monument, I am the frail vine,
twisting and waving, swinging to be free;
my tattered body, too green to be wizened.

It is not oppressive; this loneliness,
I have an imaginary friend; a reflection
in streaming melancholy. I do not really
understand her, but I call her Madame;
wisps of smoke fly about her, hydrangea
blue, she has an inexplicable broken air of
an entombed muse, the sort poets seek
to lose and gain. She floats in dark azure,
dotting the thick veils of sunlight,
she slips, trips, tarries, parries,
accompanies me everywhere; both of us
meandering to nothing in a turbulent maze
like inevitable failures, when I look away
it seems she has sliced me open; misspent
life dying within. I get rid of her on a sun-baked
green-field, my fingers reeking of roses,
knees sore with chasing infatuation, twilight
carries me home in sooty arms, she waits for me
naked on bed, so cold looking, sin-stained,
vacant eyes; she cannot comfort me.
I am almost surprised she is still there;
my reflection.