Book Covers

I am certain I led you
down this aisle before,
marked those deltas of blue veins,
that gold band there,

those ruffled wrists;
desired to roll you in some antic hay,
dotty with carousels
and black umbrellas.

The boys were trigger-happy, streets
hazy with cannon fire.
Most still have jackets,
drained of color, but intact.

They go for pennies
in a market rife with junk. Eliot's roses
are on that one, in front of the flaked Eros,
between the pedestals.

Some stone painted white
or white stone. The flowers? I wish I knew.
My father let weeds grow,
mowed wide lanes between them,

here and there a clump of stalks gone haywire,
higher than our heads.
Under my window
oceans of etcetera waved in spring.

Roses, tulips, that's about all I know;
but we were saying
something about Monet, or was it Renoir?
The wet umbrellas and the pretty girl?

Yes, we forget; your hand is wet and cool.
Blue and white and gold
make you a thing
to be marveled at,

like the sky or a sea-
scape, like one of those tilted
cherubs in the garden
that piss forever.