How Can Anybody Have You / And Lose You / And Not Lose Their Minds, Too?

[lbangs]

An Unexamined Elegance

Born just off -
The babies boomed some time before -
Instead arriving with the ones
Who had to yearn,
Who had to pay the debts.

The early years
Provided preparation
For trains long past,
No longer even whistles
Dying in the sunset.
Stash the whites before the fall.
A pinot gris will chase foie gras.

It's not a winter barrage,
Not yet.
The flurries bob
As drowning girls
Inside the pond
Out back the first floor
Of the house.
A coffee stop to find
The college woman
With her cropped down hair
And camouflage.
Her eyes are covered caverns
Underneath the play of light,
A glint that dazzles,
Disguises,
Blinds.

A smile's still allowed.

The snow is coming down.
She stretches out her slender arm
And drops a twenty in the cup
And leaves the shop alone,
Gone within the downfall.

- 12/3/19