Quintet in C

	she brings
to me the frank contagion of
an afternoon; the moon’s delirium when
the sun, too soon, goes down. I pick the panicles
of grass that dart her dress—I love
her dress. I love it the color of her hips
and love the green odor of the summer’s cuttings
at her lips; and I forget myself,
I—the smelting of ore into the bone
and tissue of an hour—am made, for an hour,
more than what I am.
	she arrives
through slow intersections where
the riders come and go; she among them, opening
her umbrella into snow. she arrives.
I take her raincoat and umbrella
and where we sit before the window, the windows
outside our own show buildings from
the inside out; and here and there
the men and women like ourselves who gather
as we gather, who take wine
wineglass, cutting board and bread
before the window-lit climes of the city.
the streets thrum below us with their ebb
and flow. let’s drink to the waves, I say,
we can’t see but feel incessantly	
against the window’s glass; the tide
subsiding beneath the mass of steel and concrete
façades.
	don’t ask what savagery
or tenderness, what thousand lives
have brought her life and mine together. the sands
of Troy are clotted by the blood
of men, killing and killed for Helen’s beauty—
and love. 
	when she’s mine again
and the great ships set sail and the fire
and feast are done, the snow’s ashes descend
on the cars parked and departing. what ruins we leave
we never leave behind.

	the girl,
the girl with the many-colored braids
replies: love leaves no ruins. she, barefooted,
who dances in the scarab’s eye with enameled hair
and lips. she leaps over the leaping seas.
love leaves no monuments, she says, no cold
command or shattered torsos sinking, sinking
into the desert sands. 
		a cracked tin pail
locked in ice beneath the barn light catches
the snow and roundabout the bottom where
the tin is welded, rust has rusted through;
and were there anyone to pick it up
the bottom, where the raindrops drum, would fall
into the mud.
	the girl who dances, dances
in rusty pails and with the singing rails
of streetcars. some nights the river walks
among the signs and storefronts, and smears
the watery roads with lampposts; the evergreens
with its twisting gray ribbons. some nights walking
along the river bank, the waters move
in leaden contemplation, darkly indifferent
to what reflects. 
	the girl who dances, dances
among the shock of willows and her hair
is rapturous as the water-witch. love leaves
no ruins, she says. love builds no edifice
of glass or stone but beats the drum of flesh
and bone. 
	let go the finch’s cry, the cry
of root and mud; the stench of earthen growth
out of the ruinous sludge, and from the soil
the berries of the spindle tree, but
the berries—colored like the girl’s lips—
are poisonous to taste or kiss. do you see
the purple shadows drip and pool beneath
the yellow birch? 
	She’s dancing in an orange
and yellow skirt. she won’t answer where
she goes. The rain has turned to snow; the bus
pulls out into the afterglow of brakes
and headlights.  
	I’ve seen her out among
the cattails, dancing in a rusty pail,
but don’t believe me. I’ll lie for beauty,
I’ll burn the city to the ground; the sands
To sheets of glass. I’ll pull the towers down,
I’ll throw the pail into the trash—the rusted pail.
The snow has turned to ash.

	the sun’s still not gone down
and out the bedroom window is the laundry,
the wind billows in the sail of sleeves
and lifted backs as though the clothes and bed sheets
pulled the world after them into
the distant waters—the world’s dark waters
that edge a summer’s field with starlight. we are
ourselves our passion’s ruins. I say
To her, the downspout buckled, maybe
tomorrow I’ll replace it. I’ve waited
so long to mow that now the tall grass flounders under
the heady weight of seed.

    I stood outside the store,
    a scarecrow looking in.
    I saw her standing by the door
    reading novels in Berlin;
    but this is how it’s always been.

    I can’t remember why
    her lipstick tastes like tin.
    she liked to sing to Zoltan Kodály
    and wished I played the violin;
    but this is how it’s always been.

    I walked the Spree with her
    as the city inked her skin;
    I should remember where we were
    the day we parted over gin;
    but this is how it’s always been.

  as I
was saying to her
before the iron brawling
of a streetcar interrupted us,
the yellow streetcar following
preordained rails through cobblestone streets;
  as I
was saying: let us be naked side 
by side. there’s nothing better or as truthful. 
let us lie together and let us lie. there’s nothing otherwise
to make sense of. 
don’t try. 
					don’t try. 


	Patrick Gillespie | March 17th 2021
	Quintet in C