foreign language sutra

    for Elizabeth

for some it’s the final red peonies blooming in
                autumn beside the concrete steps
for some it’s a pair of black Tony Lama cowboy boots, for
                some it's L'Allegro, for some Il Pensoroso   
for some it’s the cello part in Big Star’s “Blue Moon”
                throbbing behind the heartbroken voice
for some it’s the memory of Silver Surfer comics in a
                grocery store brimming with canned goods

for some it’s dancing barefoot to “Left of the Dial” in a
                living room under the paper airplane mobile
for some it’s a woman her cascading chestnut hair streaked
                green violet maroon, her tourmaline eyes
for some it’s a fragment of Sappho in Greek photocopied &
                tacked to a hallway wall
for some it’s passionate kissing in a park while strangers pass a-
                long under sad magnolias   

but I say you were right when you said that evening on your
                couch with its pink satin pillows
I only knew love as a word—
your reflection in the mirror behind me: what
                I loved best on this dark earth


Jack Hayes
© 2016