Moving Your Furniture, Packing Your Clothes

Rocks and plants aside, most
of what was graceful and beautiful
you brought into my life. Watching
it all go decorates the raw edge
of a hole too wide and deep
to have a bottom, like a thin kilim
of rose and peach stretched
over a floor too slick to stand,
the ornate mirror tumbling me
endlessly down to the yellow dress
pure and vulgar as a tulip
that encased your thighs when I
first found them my size. Tying
the hanger necks to seal black
bags for journey, I count
your mature costumes by seven
dozens, calculate the cost
of all their gossamer patterns, the cost
of all such calculation even though
it could not blind me to the grace
that swirled about you as you danced
away so near so long I thought
you'd teach and warm my
blurring sight until the end.

                                             August/Sept 01