Here is the light of the heart, yellow as apples.
Trees shoot up overnight, shaped like the nightmare
in a gothic novel, above them the sky is rainbow
colored. The wind, taking no chances, tests the art
of my face with its kisses. Rows of blue arches
rise up but no stained glass windows.
If there were a window, I’d close it. Outside,
lovers, setting out a picnic basket in an old rose
arbor, speak of me as if I were a little bit crazy.
She mentions her father, who objects to their marriage,
he talks of his sister, who’s in a nunnery. Vines,
green and tubular, climb up the trellis, soberly drumming
up roses as the red-checkered tablecloth, dusted finely
by ants, becomes by chance a giant chessboard. The lovers,
overjoyed by this change to a game of reason, put down
their pieces, play out their dreams with castle and query.
They see exactly where they want to go, divine the seasons
that roll counterclockwise, the sun falling, coming up in their
eyes, only the white knight dies. Here where the wine spills
from the bottle his blood dribbles, sweet as the Virgin Mary’s
and beaujolais-colored. The lovers drink it. It is quiet.
They think of summer inside stained glass windows, where the
saints are asleep, their ankles folded decorously one across
the other. This couple, their fingernails growing long and
sharp as a pencil, write my history. I am their purest invention.
Twice on Sunday and by three big kisses, they startle the sky
into making an appearance. Even the ants, crawling up the
trellis and into its pink-veined closets, believe they are
on major routes in a voyage of self-discovery. Nine tall clouds,
thin and layered like French pastry, ring out the Te Deum.