Hit and Run 

Only once the woman fled could she consider
this a lesson in the dangers of desire, but at the time
she wanted what the window offered: a cherry
Double-Duncan Phyfe, two rocking chairs, blue cloisonné,
a soapstone egg and bamboo combs. And so
with the blinding ardor of her entrance
she stepped against laurel-crowned Apollo
who, in falling, had become two things:
a trunk and a head. 

That night the woman dreamed
of men she never loved—all headless— 
lining up before her, waiting to be kissed.
At line’s end her husband stood
with the stems of yellow roses in his arms.  

One day someone bought the head
and placed it in a garden of white lilies.
There, at dawn, birds would dip like tiny hats
to perch upon its marble hair
then suddenly explode in flight.  

The manager at Dorothy’s brought
the torso to his bar, and any man
who saw it when he came to drink would dream
the perfect head for it, some god he loved
and never knew and— 
notwithstanding all the odds—
believed one day that he would find.

[from Radiant Losses, New Sins Press, 2010]