Swan Girl

 Your Boleyn neck
stretched until it could withstand
no further torture.
Like an impossibly long-stemmed
tulip struggling in deep shade,
animal-vegetal metaphors
undid you until death
arrived, bloodless, polite
and without a hint of rancour.

Girl in the Green Spring Coat

 It had to be
in May when the grass
could never be greener,

not even in gentle June
or lush July
I saw the girl in the green
spring coat.
Only a child model
in that intoxicating zone
between homely and divine
as crisp as celery,
as dangerous as absinthe.
No matter who is posed
besides her, she will never pale
although she is paler than a garden variety ghost
a hidden scheme, a shameful scene, a spurned dream

no one left to derise her.

Unknown Forest

 in whose forest
did you get lost?
was it at dawn
or was it at dusk?
Did you nibble on treebark?
Did you repose upon moss?
Were you a gone girl
or an invisible guest?
No matter, no matter,
You were killed by your quest.

She Threw Me

 to the hybrid dogs.
She threw me; she threw me.
Her cheshire cat face
as silky as milk all the while.
Did she know

that she threw me,
or was it a case
of deserved disgrace?
Begone ragged misfit.
This is not your place.

Two Chairs

 Are two chairs
indeed better
than one? Yes? No?
Perhaps a divan,
a settee, something
one could use
or even own?
If I furnished my hovel
with mismatched seating options,
would that make me a designer
or merely a nervous squatter?

Your Algorithm

 does not attract
mine. We've debated this
endlessly:
the prosaic vs. the sublime.
You dared to die;
I dared to defy.
In the end,
there is no end;

only distances

don't die. 

Go Slow

 Go slow, girl,
go slow. Do not be seduced
by cognitive bias.
The rush
does not exist. Repeat:
the
rush
does
not
exist
Carousels come,
and they will go.
Just like memories
and yarns of yore.