Hopelessly Devoted, Grease

(the fish blue lips of the film

focus on your hand

doting on the surface of a makeshift pond

and the water logged visage of a man.)

Dusk has kicked off its boots—

leaving night to lay its streamers in your hair.

Your nightgown is a shudder of mist we’ve been

watching curve across your chest for fifty years.

Yes, you, pink cheeked panther, known for the press

of white bodice to white trellis, sitting on the edge

of the kiddie pool, hopeless where everyone else is jealous.

It’s easy to love someone that writes loose-leaf love letters

only to stain them in the waves and shimmer of a lover’s face.

So easy to covet you—girl trying to erase some seaside

romance that for months draped your shoulders, a velvet braid.

In this intersection of star froth and lamppost light, you feel

something rise, molting and melodious, a dove in your throat,

wings in your teeth, your mouth opens on this autumn soaked

scene and there among the patio furniture and afterbirth of leaves

you set your song afloat, a few chords to finagle the face

which at your touch recedes.