An azure-glazed pitcher; a few breakfast peaches; poppy blooms;
Matisse’s empty easel, akimbo; tourists loitering in the room . . .
An aftermath of argument: harrowingly calm, night
inscribes its farewell note and hides it somewhere in the room.
For weeks someone breathed threatening messages to my machine
which I kept and played back to myself, evenings, in my room.
So many rejected dresses thrown aside as she packed: they floated
down to the bed and puddled in chairs after she left the room.
Coming home late I found the down pillow gutted and shaken,
furring with its soft innards every surface in the room.
— Janet Holmes
fr. * The Green Tuxedo*[Notre Dame, Indiana: Notre Dame Univ. Press, 1998] (Via Hal Johnson)