December Rose

I

nevermind the lofty faces that you meet the faces that you nod to quickly on the street

recall....the dance of the yellow-jacket’s ritual around the nipples of the honey-suckle stems; the nights her pants would lie beside your bed; songs of birds singing well past breakfast - her leg around your waist, arm across your chest: recall the plaintive face staring out your window and sighing - for another breath to relieve her of the strain from more uncertainty.

II

below the afternoon bridges, under a street-lamp flickering and unstable - I swallow the crisp dusk air and watch the violet sunset recline into a cloudy chamber of forgotten repose; while she returns a letter written by her abstruse young friend - (my irreverent brother) when the seasons were less cruel: but forgiving in quiet December evening snows; when the mornings were less forced: resolving themselves in capitulated scenarios