LE SPECTRE DE LA ROSE
(NEW POEM: A HAG VARIATION CHANNELLING MARGOT FONTEYN, IF MARGOT FONTEYN WAS GAY - JUST GO WITH IT)
this heat, dear god. this room. a tranquillised diplomacy. refrain is bottlenecked inside the throat. i float, infused, transfigured; so pink and smooth: sequestered egg. i dream, such dreams! my cloudy raptures overrun. i must wake up. to wane of nations, whine of wealth, wax of sun; the clean and reachy flight of birds, white birds. those deadly vestal things are women in accomplished dresses, sweeping up and down. not i. an egg does not aspire to flight. nor envy them the nonchalance and promise of their wings. an egg endures, inscrutable; self-contained though self-consumed. i have been casting myself from the tall contour of sleep, over and over. i roll, over and over, the supple particulars of feeling. dreaming has an etiquette of lustre, fastens fire to thought. as hunger is the mortar of this mirage, still i roll. as chandeliers congeal the so-congenial light, i roll. down and down the hill of my own calcified fancy until – composure’s thin cocoon has cracked. then i must wake out of myself, in a weak stream of rosy yoke. to be poached or folded-in, to the sticky business of living – the busy shtick of the living – to be whipped to honeyed foam. i would be left alone. the darkly garboed mind has drawn its voile against the day. bad ideas assail me with their grim and rushing beauty. or, filing through my morning like loose suitors, pimpled prom dates, spare heirlings, they come to kiss my centre parting. in my head: a corsage orchid, wilting. a damsel, ivory-bright with assignation, is turned, under the convent proscenium gently. she is myself. the light is a ladder i dread and ascend, detest and ascend. is love. no, love is a chorus line of colgate saints, immaculately mouthing. love is a school bus full of matriculated cherubs: mean-girling, girl-bossing, clean-girling, lithe and viral. they hate you. this heat, dear god. this room. the syrup of commiseration, poured all over everything. and they want me to wake, to work, to walk when i can only roll. or hang, pendant between dependence and dominion. the self is sick room with high red walls. cloistered by contagion, i have taken orders. no, not holy orders – anything but that.