éclat & cast lots

i married a person of  great age whom i had won

in a bet. they seemed prophet or king. of considerable

pedigree. and worshipper of  chance.

                                             better women than i

had drawn lots but this bridegroom—éclat—felt himself  favored

by fate. gleam of chosenness—chaste pinking—

on his dominican cheek. and a cat-plus-cream smile. no matter

if  he was rinsing the empties

or choosing a tint to touch up the wall

where we’d scuffed it, squealing in delight of discovery

(or despair of discovery) (let’s say on adjacent days i’d find him

a pork-lover or saint of some standing

beneath the pillar of a local temple

and my preconceptions would shuffle and arrange forthwith),

                                 my  pavlova  he called me owing to my connections

and i ballooned and meringued for him. in the crepuscule

of a suburban garden. on the hexagon-slabbed patio

he took a stunted peach rose—diesel-fumed—and turned it

on my décolletage. disarming me. i let him wear my primrose shoes

and he teetered into a bed of  sweet williams

sinking in premium claggy peat

where i took him relentlessly until the evening traffic ceased

and the garden-shed beams gave final creaks of cooling

and unknowing, and hushed. and the easter moon pearled and beamed

right overhead.

           chance you may say. or scandal. but not one of our neighborhood

said any bad word or set their kids snickering

as he grew ashier and more venerable and my thoughts

reshuffled and grouped until i quite forgot our lottery

beginnings and thought myself a vassal in his palace bobbing

and attending his throne where his long white hair

drifted over dimpled opal arms, and his goatee

crackled with static and profuse delectation

of election. anointing. and the turnaround

of  his eventual events.

                                             his cheeks are grizzled these days,

his genitalia honeyed, with an intimation of  jaundice. but he is genial still

and gracious and hides peach-rose billets-doux by my pillow

suggesting new rendezvous and new words

for old things and at times

i think this is like snowy luck—

suave from the head down

like the gift of a parasol in autumn—

kindly thought. if  he pulls an argenteuil sword

from a slimline scabbard, he will seem queen and i will be

healed and bedazzled and consider myself  luckiest of  me