A painted woman in a Venetian still-life

all rusty orange and robin’s egg blue—

the sky’s wonderful in the background out her porch

all greek-corinthian regal

the clouds out there all red,

summer sunset drops 

an atomic bomb.

 What’s the truth in the pale blue

 ocean-blue rolling waves in the sky?

Sipping red wine, it stains her nightgown

running down her legs like birth,

death, blood running 

dripping
           caressing
                     skipping down

her cactus-needle legs

soaking eggshell porcelain gown 

to mahogany ruin

the sky turns black now

the biting night breeze will cleanse,

absolution in the enclosing 

blue empty of the balcony.

The old emerson echoes from her lofty room into night,
melancholy love songs,

Oh, where’d my sweet love go?

 

the strange city hollow below

all clay-roof, white-wall, lights-on-but-no-one’s-home

         it’s empty—

and she’s a charcoal silhouette 

against the glow of streetlights

down in pebble-ground pathways 

vacant golden doorways and 

deep hollow footsteps in the beach sand

the sting of

bare feet on cold balcony-stone

skin blotched red-wine oxblood,

the wooden archway awaiting warm embrace

as she steps soft-padding on the polished brunette oak

to pour another cabernet, merlot, bordeaux, crimson red,

trembling hands on emerald bottle, broken nails

grasping the crystal luminous 

shining-in-the-waning-moonlight

          glass of red sea. 

Wailing sea-foam waves rock the buildings 

back and forth, gently, 

a child’s bassinet, lullabies,

the poor sweetheart whines hollow,
bitter echoes muffled in mother’s mourning

Where do broken hearts go?
 

wine’s all over the floor now

puddled beneath her feet, washed in red

bathed in ferment 

the emerson’s playing static now

the horizon goes indigo,

white-knuckled scarlet fingers caress the bottle.