Day After Valentines

Lonely one, where’s your soul mate?
Don’t you know that otherness

is a looking glass? Learn to hug

every reflection. See God in Dog,  

each tulip and toadstool your paramour,

the grizzled stranger hunkered on
the sidewalk your long-lost cousin,
his countenance a treasury of golden
freckles bequeathed to your children.

Put your tears in his cup - salt, no sugar.

Get a crush on the fallen one inside you,

the orphaned shadow of your shame.

Her gaze, I tell you, gives your face

its chiaroscuro: layers of imperfect night

perfecting the glow in your furrows,

your crow’s feet, the downcast upbeat

curve of lips that taste world-sorrow.

You dance cheek to cheek with dragons

who turn into angels when you kiss them.

Don't seek your better half:

that’s just lack reflecting lack.

50% of you, plus 50% of me

is not a relationship, it’s a pity party

in an antique tear mirror.

Wrap your atoms in angel bling,

the feather boa of your eccentricity.
To the rhythm of breathing, waltz
with Alcyone of the Pleiades

up the spiral staircase in your spine,
where cherubim tango with Furies

from the loam below, the double helix

of beauty and grief that makes you human.

You beamed here to party in the dark.

Now whirl, and if anyone asks

who you're dancing with, say

"Dizziness itself!"

 


 Persian miniature by Mahmoud Farshchian.

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