I do not want a plain box, I want a sarcophagus
With tigery stripes, and a face on it
Round as the moon, to stare up.
I want to be looking at them when they come
-Sylvia Plath
because you're often here:
my head is booked with you,
heart wrapped in your worm;
even my feet walk where I do not want to go
thanks to old paths you laid to bone,
invisible, revived by instinct.
Don't get big headed about it -
you know my memory, I recall
every figurine caught in the web.
Many have no names now
& some of the rest are only names.
But unlike most, you're wont to escape
this night scribble brain garden,
percolating into a shapely world.
From time to time I wonder where they go,
all those strange and lovely yous
that leak in photo negative
from my mind's eye with dusky limbs
& that unforgettable voice,
paroled and incessant...
If you are ever out strolling
by your canal where the waters are so still
& so black that the drunks swerve away
& the sodium vapor eyes recoil,
& you hear following steps and look back
& there you are...
walk faster.