Intervention

Paul stole some prose.
It was not a catch phrase.

He stole a floodlight.
It illuminated nothing when off.

He gathered up cast-off clothing.
No one was left barefoot and naked.

Paul removed grace.
It was installed in a marble statue.

He removed a daguerreotype.
Its sepia tones tinted the landscape.

He assembled a woman.
A snake curled around her thigh.

The snake found no prose to speak.
The woman left ripened fruit untouched.

Knowledge fell to the ground.
Good and evil fermented under the sun.

Paul watched ants disassembled them.
The woman turned away from him.

He watched her leave his line of sight.
It was not an event horizon she crossed.

He gathered some moonbeams.
They illuminated nothing in daylight.

Himalayas

The wet lick of a damp tongue
left on your cheek glistens
a snail’s slow passage.

How did you not tumble
out of sleep as the shell
pulled you up out of the tide.

I mean the bright opals on your cheek
catch the dog’s eye
startled out of its color blindness.

Or you could call it pearlescent
if you prefer to describe it as luster
like a moon bean on the bucket’s raw metal.

Imagine the snail’s destination.
So important it decided
to cross the Himalayas of your bulk.

Paul spent the night
collecting the extra moonbeams
that fell to the ground.

He placed them in a cedar box
with two orcas carved in relief
upon the lid.

His plan was next morning
to braid the moonbeams
into Dora’s hair

so other might see
that loving glow he sees
when his eyes rest on her.

Paul overslept due to his late night
and Dora was out
before he woke

because it was a day of too many shadows
and the bronze bell’s call to church
rang a little bit hollow.