Gold---5/6

Gold

The camera flicked off
and I saw only my reflection
in the infra-red lens.
You had disappeared from behind me;
your resonance
laid like dead orange butterflies
on the asphalt
until a hot wind took it into the
enormous white silence of the sky.
The parade was over.

The ribbons hung in the trees
and the balloons floated across the lake
to meet at the island in the middle.
The bluebirds turned back into children
as if some curse had been lifted
and I saw things
not through the eyes of some hysterical muse
but through my own.

You said in some unfinished melody:
“There’s a hole in my heart where there will
always be a place for you.”
Now I’m sure I don’t want to live in a hole.
I’m looking for a whole heart to live in
and I promise to whomever is willing to let me rent the space
that I’ll paint the walls gold
and hang paper stars from the windows.
I’ll look out at the perfect rhythm of their organs
and feel safe as the wind chimes
sing along with their blood.

So while you claim a few highways as yours
and try to fill the hole I left open
with purple paint and cigarette ash;
while you throw pennies into goldfish ponds
wishing for a girl to write your songs for you,
while you stand in your glass box
whoring out gold rings and broken TVs,
while you’re swallowing the weather like cough syrup,
I’ll be busy letting birds out of cages and
calling love whatever I want to call it.