Untitled

R.M. Vaughan
From:   Invisible To Predators. ECW Press, Fall 1999.

       "Mais, une fois qu'on a commence' de vivre, ca n'en finit plus."
            -Anne He'bert, la robe corail

yes, I could be transparent, have no more than 2 meanings
for every sentence, smother      the small inhalations
in duck-lined beds    (instinctual)
but I am not

      tired, only some part of me, the corner of intellect
reserved for newspapers, educated company, family fights
won't shut up, won't misread for me, play blind man's bluff or
any game with kissing and shut eyes     won't say - this means
nothing, I am safe -

from harm, I take baby steps      dangle limbs over balconeys
sit on cane back chairs made for light men in linens       even dance
fat-legged, convinced of rhythm       but from love all manner
and logic, knives if necessary       nothing closes me, nothing

to danger, a smile pulled from the eyes, where smartness lives
or a wrist, the left, folding surrendered air in cross-cuts       language
for events microscopic, just as loud       but to love
no tricks no practiced feints of hip or cape, no tangles of scarves
to swirl over the very idea      because love happened, once, and
like anything charming       love was just another language, another dress,
a sneaky link of party half-grins      spread chair to chair, room to room
      signing the trickster from his mark

Poem 1 | Poem 2 | Poem 3 | Poem 4 | Poem 5 | Poem 6

R.M. Vaughan's works copyright © to the author.