July 5, 2019

• skin deep

  

   

  do you believe that beauty
  is only skin deep? i have
  never seen your skin, even though all night
  the raindrops have moistened your hair
  in my dream.  early morning came
  on tiptoe to peep in my window
  with a kind of regret.

  but what to do about afternoons
  and the long, long roads with so much time
  unraveling between us?  once, no distance
  was too great to disregard.  now windows
  glower at each other, lawns burn brown,
  and hopeless roses
  are crushed by summer's torpor.

  it is mid-afternoon
  and i am pondering beauty
  vis-à-vis the question of skin-deep.
  i am trying to track down the answer
  in four or five fugitive verses
  in a volume of wine-flavored late T'ang
  poetry, entitled Song of Eternal Sorrow.
  i might find the answer there.

  you never know

  • 5:50 am
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