At your party I will stand Compliant as a hat rack Carefully holding parasols and scarves (An iron kind of evening — neither cool nor bright) You will swan about the room Medusa bleak and breaking arms Smiling with an executioner’s grace Bodice laced With an hourglass desperation I am still angular as adolescence By the kitchen door Holding these strange and lurid canapés (Pierced through and with an iridescent shine like the mortised remains of blue admiral butterflies) Crying for your midnight emancipation (Your powdered mien begins to crack like glass) In the beveled edge of gilded mirrors Catching signs of extraordinary life For an exit, feint Collapsing in three miles of sequinned cloth As if you were the last enchanted avé On midsummer’s river Of course It is not yet daylight savings here My hands too full of walking sticks and woollen mittens I wear my face at 3 a.m. (or quarter past) And watch Letting you fall slowly to the floor
