Virgil on Main Street: Of Memory

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The universe is a carbon copy
of the mind: light and dark
in a chaos of steps, forward
back around, a pas de deux
of nothingness and its precursor,
a grand hurtling through time
beautifully fractured.

But this is not what I want
to tell you. A woman
steps to the corner in high
heels, her broken reflection
startled like diamonds on the wet
road at her feet, the cut
glass green and fire-truck red,
the shine on the street a Jackson
Pollack orgasm as perception splits
and splits again, forming and reforming,
rising up her stout legs, riding
her belly like her dream of a child,
standing up her throat like shouted song,
to become the chemistry in her brain
and whistle in her blood with the wind.

And this is the beginning of the world,
dirty-perfect, a frameless picture
of carnal weeping for all that we desire
and can not have, all that slips
through the senses and into the mind
only to decay a second later.

The woman in red limps
across the broken glass
to sink into the sea, to be carried
on the riptide of memory, to sink
deep; and one day in the rain
she will rise again to stand
on a corner, surprised
by my ancient poet's face, the sudden
spew of gems at her feet.