Postludes

After T.S. Eliot

I
The moon swoons low and purse-slung
on the sore shoulder of a frostbit sky.
One-thirty.
The smell of exhaust and french fries.
And now the winter’s faithless chill
cuts skin until
your green hat Made in China joins
the gaping wrappers on the street;
cup-jangling coins
employ a kind of strangling beat
while neon throbs of beer and sirloin.
A tired engine shifts and dies.
And then the flight of barflies.

II
The sunlight bleeds its morning mess
onto the gum-pockmarked cement.
The coffee’s smell is weak and burnt
and many cracked hands will soon caress
their styrofoam and lid-capped cup.
Of all the paces time has run
or hobbled through the lonely nights
one thinks of all the heads picked up
from pillows of undreaming sun
to days bathed in fluorescent light.

III
You lounged, awash in t.v. glare,
you fiddled with the socks you hated;
you slowed your breathing to the pace
of the monochromatic dream
through which your soul was percolated;
reflected fingers shone in your hair
love and death scenes on your face,
and when you came back to the world
the dryer shouted loud and sterling
and through the sun and white dust swirling,
you felt the coming of a train
no human eye had seen before;
sitting on your tired chair
awake for now but unaware
bright visions sparked within your brain
while restless feet tapped resting floor.

IV
Her soul pressed firmly to a ball
that fell next to the kitchen waste,
or stretched to make a stunning dress
worn once and then removed in haste;
and cigarettes pass lip to lip
and fingers jingle useless change
and small white thighs press to the wall
built skyscraper-high to give the streets
tall shoulders stiffened to the fall.

I am woken by a gentle breath
and tendrils clinging to my sight;
the memory of some eminently waking
eminently unfolding light.

Shield your eyes to shadow, and laugh;
the days meander like the waves
on the softening arms of the shore.