Poetic Interlude LXVII

Gentle Reader, let’s go back to the first Poetic Interlude, and possibly my best poem.

Champagne, Silk, Steel

My cufflinks clink against the glass

Filled with gas-station champagne.

It’s Californian, and regrettably cheap.

You asked to come by, tonight.

I knew what I must do, how

I must comport myself.

There is a rhythm to these things;

And you know how I like to

Observe the proprieties.

I knew, when you asked to come,

I’d cast you aside, a ring into the sea.

I’d be wed to the loss of you,

Wake up with your lack each morning.

You, of course, didn’t react.

I, of course, will never move on -

I shall dwell in a memory of something that never happened,

Wearing a suit bought for our unplanned wedding,

Praising you, to a congregation of cats,

A sad person, in silk, and champagne.

I drain each bottle, glass by glass,

And, from out the East, drain sun after sun.

Song after song enters the star that was my soul,

And, for love of you,

I go nova.

I can’t, for the life of me, tell

If the tears or the champagne are staining the silk.

I can’t, for the life of me, tell

If it’s my love for you, or the lack of you,

That gently lifts me to a cabinet of pistols -

-to view them, of course.

The ammunition’s in quite another room, my sweet.

Regardless, when I think of you,

I remember champagne on silk,

And the taste of blued steel.

There are times, my love, when I wonder,

If I had never met you, how young I would have died,

And if you had never met me, how

You would have ever survived.

The pregnant moon has come and gone, now.

She came, yawned once, and returned to her bed.

I must make do

With the friendship of the fountain,

Tinkling at dawn.

I can learn from her;

She always cries.

I grow weary of mourning, each morning,

But what else is to be done?

Even if things had gone according to plan,

I never would have been your bride.

What use is my story?

There are nine billion beside -

©2013 by Tyler J. Yoder. All rights reserved

Tagged: Heartbreak, LGBT Breakup Poems, Loss, Love, Patchwork Narrative, Poetic Interludes, Poetry, Tyler J. Yoder