Time heals all wounds
except
those strychnine hours
festering with wasted love;
those sapphire scabs
submerged
beneath memory’s waters,
sucking life through gills
slit as thin as drug-store smiles.

You stood like angels
dancing
in the next room,
telling men of your passions,
slapping me with your fetish,
sequined pride,
open-mouthed
self-adulation,
keeping me tied like a favorite
mangy stray
to the long leash of your approval.

I still remember you,

Your copper ways,
drinking yourself more beautiful,
walking with the sway of bulrushs,
dreaming of those snow-flake days
when lightness would become you,
when you would fly
far from the anchor of me.