WILD WILD WAYS
WILD WILD WAYS
by klipschutz
Don’t mention the old days.
You’re talking to yourself again.
Somewhere between the bar and the café
you got lost at sea and drowned
in your tears on the sunken dance floor
in the spinning light the storm-watch night,
as the band went overboard, over a face
that is the absolute harbor of desire,
featureless, irresistible,
end of song.
You’re talking to the girl you used to be.
Saying what you needed to hear.
From klipschut’z new book, The Drawn & Quartered Moon.
I like the extended metaphor that saturates the second stanza. The woman, as I interpret it, can’t extricate herself from the passionate call of love, which overwhelms her like a siren’s. Her “wild wild ways” have apparently receded, but she still yearns to die in that kind of life. I’d like to read the book.