She started to fall so
I tilted her back to the wall
– just so – that way her heart
wouldn’t break
Some water?
I offered
she gazed through me numbly
a beam between two pairs of eyes too deep
had nothing to hide
she proffered
Is it love
or affliction
she whispered
and isn’t it just
the truest of times?
Chagall 2016
I am secure in the dark tunnel
your hair frames about my face.
The nightroom is violet,
moonlight rouges your cheeks.
Gentian fills the air, we’re children, we whisper excitedly
into each others ear, ticklish, warm, and sensuous.
We move invisibly, pepper-silk sheets, timeless postures,
silhouettes against the open bay windows.
Night breeze blows cool streams across the bed,
refreshes me, each time I rise and fall.
I stare at the grace of the arc you cut,
at all of the napes where you crane.
My straddles throw you in shadow or allow you to be lit,
depending on where I am, between you and the light.
And when we perfect the flip, you’ll do the same for me:
twin souls dancing to the strains of a forgotten eclipse.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
It’s been said
love’s accents are all that remain,
the patois of paradise.
The bloodrush, quick pulse,
nuance, inflection,
when spirits soar.
But now there are no words.
Every way back
to you is blocked.
Halls that lead to nowhere:
the shady corners
of your maze.
I shout your name
from under the canopy,
ancient fronds.
Cool pools lap,
the sole reply
in chill morning.
Haze about my ankles
swirls and spirals me up,
through the thicket.
Aloft,
I search about the mist,
but find I’m no less lost,
despite this vantage.
I sense
I am
imperishable.
I return to my native seat
when the music stops,
sure to find you there,
but mistaken.
I am alone
on the edge that lies ahead,
eternal as the road behind.
So strange to live forever?
Stranger still
that we were at all.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Alphabet City 