Picadilly or paradise

American Poetry Review, The, Mar 1996 by Yau, John

When I leap through the flung open windows of your dance

and reach toward my shadow, its drifting silk and nylon net,

everyone looks at the wind growing a new set of teeth around the moon.

Once, they were among the sweetest of the town's prize apples,

evocative names and histories a waiter would point to on the

menu,

his mouth forging the budding pink and yellow clouds

that would soon swell and open above the visitor's table.

I remember praying for a dazzling array of snow and clay

to descend the stairs to the cellar where I was kept.

But she was afraid to reveal her latest desire:

blue face powder kept in the bronzed shoe of a former lover,

and velvet gloves for every bird. As for him,

the man with silver breath, words were like a toupee-

something he could not share with anyone.

An ink storm swept across this emblazoned map

where pompous couples prided themselves on their choice

of emerging crowd pleasers and corncob furniture.

A train full of inscribed pavement stones rattled through

the tunnels, its polished bronze instruments

swaying gently in the lower layers of the united dark.

Each of us ends up a piece of luggage carried by others.

When I am on my belly, I am glad that I am not a turtle

carrying my tiled igloo toward the advancing sea.

You flicked off your wings, but I left them in the sand.

Remember, satisfaction isn't necessarily a guarantee.

I am neither Delilah's niece nor her nephew,

because I keep a pair of scissors beneath my mattress.

A hotel would probably provide the best pillows

for our next little excursion, but I don't like numbered doors.

I like my rooms to have a name: Passionate Chitchat,

Nervous Bells of the Fragile Dawn, Delicate Smothering

Amidst Chrome Snooze Lots, Impersonal Convenience

Of A Kind You Might Not Have Known About Until Now.

I want the reception to remind you of a clean river.

No more metal shutters or rusted fences. I am positive

there are other acceptable forms of rehabilitation

that will entice me to remove my customized fingernails

from your smile, the one you have never worn

when you glide above the bolts of our mortgaged axle.

Why do some screams attract more sightseers than others?

Why do you grip your lips? Why do I grab my sagging slab?

Some questions beg the answer, others annoint their fingers.

Either I am waiting for a sign of permanent eruption

or you are dousing candles in the last yawns of our jury.

John Yau's recent publications include a book of short stories, Hawaiian Cowboys, published by Black Sparrow Press in 1995, and a book of poetry with photographs by Bill Barrette, Berlin Diptychon, from Timken Publishers in 1995.