Mis En Scène: A Wet Season

The graceless way in which

you wooed me positions itself,

transfigures itself into a scene

(complete with broken reels

and under-developed frames)

so that when evening falls—

as evening inevitably does—

the spectacle commences on

the wall opposite my bed, a bed

I once christened with you,

many moons ago, in a wet season,

the wall's grainy paint patterns

yielding proffered flowers and

sentiments to make up for the truth

which is that you offered ale

in lieu of daffodils and fucked me

like a lion going in for the kill

which is not to discredit the fall

which came afterwards, when a lasso

was thrown around my iron neck

so that in the film, in the memory,

you might as well be a cowboy

or at least one schooled in the art

of possessing, branding, owning,

though we owned each other—

I can witness this each night as well:

the parting like a Siamese rupture,

the room barren despite the image

of you, iconic, cleaved, a relic of sorts,

something that haunts me, a wraith

prohibiting Hypnos by sheer beauty

not by any rattling of chains

for the ghost of love (however

gained) is always tainted with such

buoyancy and before drifting off into

sleep which like evening always wins

I almost forgive you for the lack of

daffodils, I almost forgive myself

for my own appetite that damp night.