Tempera

Query feels like a brand though it comes with veil

the doctors say, phantom pain becomes step mother

to fragile veins

first one to freeze come a cold snap

ready for tindering a bristling fire

at noon I want to eat warm eggs from your palm

touch your vermillion paint brush to my own face

feel the render of tempera against parchment

without any contempt for you, I wish you gone

but ink dries fast in the cold, it’s a myth it takes a warm day

to run a bath and slit your wrists

they never ask why, only how

the fire trucks blink like fallen damsons on melting streets

it was your enemy knocked on the door, broke it down, carried you out

not laughing at your slack form, the way your hair when wet

thins into dismal life line

the bequeath of surprise leaves us wordless

I with my bandages, you with your newly found soul

the sweetness of sharing this clementine center almost makes us forget our mutual hatred

to burn in respective votive, prayed to by sinners, also cherishing the role of loathing

dying is a slow storm, coming in squall, lost to its own menace

we leave the phone off the hook and become masks affixed to unpainted wall

maybe the next inhabitants will lift them gently from their nail

and remark before painting

that they left no shadow

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Fille sauvage

manon4You reached the river

as your hair dragged you beneath

a weight within water within echo

your thimble wrists and slender elbows

unable to resist the lure

water witch they said

girl of the mountain

purple sage

perhaps an angel

or a magi lost in olive groves

your cheeks are reddened by my regard

I wake thinking of how your body

looks in setting sun with the fine heat

behind you like a wild shadow

dancing on sombaro

you are the kind of woman few would dare to pursue

it is not your nature to stay long

in the lisping skip of your tenderness

you leave us longing without knowing

we do

dis-moi fille sauvage

de quoi donc as-tu si peur?

la vie n’est pas un mirage

nous avons tous un coeur

(last four lines Richard Anthony / Fille Sauvage)