Hermetic Melody after Mark Strand

Behind the quiet red curtain of the great house
they are preparing a small blue floodplain
of damages that even now the poor empty heart
struggles to sit comfortably with, safety-pinned

to this dark exertion of days through which every
twilight your grandmother’s starch-white sheets
are thrown like (yeah) ghosts over the coffee table
and couch; the coffee table and couch where one

still might sit with a quiet harp and little touch
of gin in their teacup of poison, waiting for some-
thing to stir down the hatch then fall past the rubble

of such starless scenery.