Sang-froid (Living With An Actress)

You touch as if to remove lipstick.

There is every shade of blond in the lock
stopped by the authority of your right
eyebrow. Editing annoys you.

Green bees upon a field of chartreuse annoy
you. Conflict between fabric and design
is unpardonable. (Napoleon and Madame R.
may have favored the symbol, but all this
belongs to a previous denouement.) After
your mother died, you did not come
home.

Last night you did not come home. When you
were Ophelia, I untangled each blossom
from your hair.

I fought past Hamlet into the grave.
I expired before you upon our tomb, assuming you
would follow.

You unloose your hair and the chimera
of a smile; I choose the long face
of a Sadducee, for in this next scene we deny
the resurrection of the dead



Sang-froid (Living With An Actress) [#46]
© 2004 Fammerée


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Richard Fammerée
fammeree.com
fammeree@att.net
director@universeofpoetry.org


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Photograph by Susan Aurinko

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