Be gentle with me.

Piano in the dark, trees

Be oh so tender.

I care not how it goes, how you rage and swell, your blushing anger silhouetted like crimson lace against the window corded with fog, your grey room veined in rain.

Be merciful, be sweet.

Your fingertips on my eyelids and tears on my throat, evening or morning I don't know.

Hollow, augured, I have no say none at all so
be quiet don't tell me that you're standing
in your skirt that smells of mute chamomile and cinnamon
that draws its lips back above your knees
in the peeling doorway with only balmy shadows slicking the walls behind you.
I want nothing of your handkerchiefs choked up with lavender
or of that bruised rouge cracking like old gargoyles on your eyelids.

Be silent, take and leave.

Corpses of lilacs, blue urn shuttered in dust pleading emptily,
vanquished.

Be harsh, suck in your lip turn
parade oh tragedy through the licking downpour,
gray satin leeching the scent from my
bent porch planks
I'll see you off but only from behind
the clouded muslin of the window good night
as evening plucks blue mutters
from the urn.