Leaves

American Poetry Review, The, Nov/Dec 2006 by Maclay, Sarah

The green brocade, the layers, like a wall of spring-Ophelia, leonine in tub-Bizet a drape of echo on the tile-masculine, the roar, perhaps while shaving, head thrown back-Kurt, Michael, Reed-closer, red, the gold, our clothed bodies, cushions of support-Sebastian, Cleopatra, Howard, Tom-a spell of foliage below, huge, engorged, enveloping, no summer-the tux. the tie, the white shirt on the hanger-Richard-hunger for the shot glass, for the blue pinot-the time this designates, its pages-grigio, bells, white smoke, the crowd now visible if thin-the ever absent diminution of the distances-the wall, the chairs, the carpeting-the visible, the newly nameable-in our midst, in our mist-the teal, the burgundy, the bronze, the fade to ochre, umber, flattening of foreground/background/memory/imagination-Bill, the unknown center of the room-echo chamber of the shell, the hollow 'round which hardness curves-not gone alone-the gone concurrent blond events, the time of velvet hand to glove-as if an opera-as if a song-the tuneless mirror, spill of paper, crushed and wretched stems, the dust-winter a fact, as usual, behind the fall-and what comes after night that is not morning.

(i.m., W. M.-Vancouver, 2005)