ANN LAUTERBACH
ROMANCE (SANS RIMBAUD)
She said nothing; he mentioned his daughter.
They met, one evening, in a room without coercion
and from there digressed to a place
remote as a park and as wandering: grass
littered with small defects, fountains waterless.
They forgot their hobbies and skipped out
on real appointments with friends. Hair, mouth, skin.
They knew them, perched on a limb each morning, singing.
He despised summer, the risky season, melodious,
thick air entangled air netting journeys he dreamed of;
choice itself a violence. He craved an immune
but legible haven where he might raise himself
to Kingdom Come. He lay in bed, her face
overhead, obliterating: a Byzantine portrait.
He mentioned his daughter: "Everyone starts with image,
clutching the long white doll that supersedes illusion."
She said nothing, searched the attic for clues .
The old pictures stabbed, utterly private, vindictive:
someone standing by a gate in front of a garden.
She came across letters, irrevocably folded,
and dreamed they were a shape tangible in space, of
huge porcelains cast at her feet by an entirely white man.
She sent a grave wind to molest him; he vanished.
Each moment jettisoned desire until they were wicked with loss.
