East

My casual end and
Casual evenings,
I have been closing inches on
The mocking smile of a Gypsy Vanner.

With the fringe of a true beast,
I could have said without a shift,
The hue be deeper than the corals beneath.
Closing the distance is childless, and often,
She says, "I come from the east
though I have stopped here
but twice."

Twice, a tarot in each hand.
My truest friend, a Dahlia --
Twice I thought I would
have made you deaf,
But it was solely on me.

****

After dinner both have crushed their teeth
and lay silently in bed,
Under crested ceiling boards
Which carried termites in the seams.

Their mother kissed the radiator
and each their foreheads claimed a crown,
Of plum crushed velvet, sharp as the tabor boys
So the cold sieves to their bones;
And the coral young,  the coral young
Are cold still, on their feet,
And the lord had given them none, but twice --
A knife with which to eat.