Naming The Woman
Number One
This mistress leads me --
Down by a river that used to be sea,
there was a forest; and a house
spiraling inward
deeper than the well,
fast asleep,
That can’t ever be drawn from.
Beneath her gypsy flowered gown
skeleton key rattles
against ivory figures,
bits of colored glass, and bone
The fallow women lived together there;
danced together under the moon,
ceiling of glass,
over a house of shells.
-- Stock still and fleeting
I fly from room to room chased
by the shadows of wax figures.
Walls lined in mirrors,
reflected old monochromographs,
women from long before them
with dry, brown-brittle edges
in soft-gilt frames.
