Tying Impression

Tying Impression
by John Allen
Opal radiance–
the thumbprint’s dust
on the mirror
A young woman’s reflection in
the moving sale.
reflecting DNA.
I will pray at the fountain be
fore you.
A fractured moon.
The thimble caked with plasma dust.
A simple flame,
asking to be doused.
A simple shred–
That’s all the fairy asked for
later:
all your teeth.
A dimpled sun.
The stable of nuns
The dark horse
with rosary beads
Instead of a tail
Woman in the mirror–
a camera filming her shut
Spiritus Sanctus, the
actress stops rolling her
funeral.
The man shrill and vituperant.
A needle under the thumb
Hanging frame of non cognizance.
An echo in swats
The movie changes into a painting.
A box of cobwebs cradled in a
museum, off display.
Taxi on the river Styx–
the dead man’s bicentennial.
Juggling frames,
the painting changes!
A bomb falls
Screams hushed like
gravel pop
on the Blackhawk’s screen.
Have you seen me?
The missing poster ten
years old.
Pink missal papered
the calendar added up
incorrectly.
Sun draped lemonade
DOA, they called the dope,
and indeed
you were dead on arrival.
But never to me.
Silt teardrops fall on
sycamore plutonium.