Poetic Relief

BEADS

The dream of a Coltrane solo

accompanies this evening

too wet for saxophones,

lines my ears

with the soft noise of a record

before the music comes.

Manhattan is touched

by a tropical wand;

Through curtained windows

I see the crumpled mirage of you.

Sleep a troubled memory,

my bed a factory,

I string each hour like a bead

on a night necklace.

This is what blind women did

to mark the hours

until someone comes to love them.

When the city is blackdark

I walk through Bermuda air so heavy

the occasional raindrop fights

for breathspace.

Puddle-vapors

suffocate in asphalt clouds

of Apocalypse 

in Central Park.

A silhouette

waddles across the Transverse

in the mist,

hesitates for a second

with my scent.

We exchange fear, his 

leafy dark primordial spell

Quivery and damp

I return to my kitchen

where all  ingredients

smell of desire,

where I will knead and press things.

From my oven I take out

my dark work:

eight beads—sweet

and unbearably fragile--

like papier mache, like berries,

one by one they slide with a prick

onto this rosary  

and pray

for sleep’s blind relief.