Calming, Velvet

I am a calming, velvet couch

Fern leaning westward

Flaccid cigarette hanging like

Two-ton arms

Hold yourself with cemetery’s

Grief, sit on my thread

And finger the pattern

Criss-crossed, hatched, shaded

Like Art 101 — step by step

I am between the lips

Glossed, of plum and hyacinth

Remnants like dirt and

Oh, maybe a ceramic is never

Really bought, always given away

Professor, what kind of furniture

Holds the legs of a man who can

No longer grieve, no longer

Hold a pen —no longer Hold

Splay your palms as a portrait

And let them paint.

— ODH