To Polina, my anchor, through all my lives
Between dawn and dusk
on the precipice
in shades of scarlet
stood a magnificent house
Strangers and I were enthralled
by the neon red foyer where
Francesca and Paolo welcomed us
to the house of a thousand doors
Each door an invitation
to delicious desire
each room a seduction
of perilous passion
One door opened —
three bare women holograms
drank from a small lake and
brandished wicked, feline smiles
At my feet a church of cardinals
glowing with tears, heat and sweat
whimpered in their prayers
but the pope watched from afar.
He speaks—
the mouth at once is an eye, an abyss
and a hurricane from Pandora's box
Then I am I no more — a cardinal in crimson —
but no shame or guilt guides me
when blood-red lips land on mine
"Do you not see
there is equal courage
equal purity
in giving
into
temptation—
the kind
that appals the devil
to revel
in the hurt, the open wounds,
and the agony
to dive deep—
into the depths
and say all the yeses
to embrace the darkest demons
of your soul?
Enter—
and you shall find
hell or heaven within yourself."
Based on a dream Polina had that I find to be all too symbolic that it must be immortalized.
April 2017
