After the Opera: A Drug-scene Tattoo
“one night he kissed
My soul out in a burning mist.”
—Robert Browning
A tenor and soprano sang among
My nightmares and that heavy dose of drugs;
The tenor’s voice became some devil’s tongue
Which licked at fevers from the diva’s dugs;
A fugue of nausea concocted from
Those paranoid notes and thwarted love,
From colors dripping off a Martyrdom
(Sebastian–penetrated, coy) above
My degradation swirled me to sleep.
While still in darkness, I came up for air
As in a fog exuded by the deep;
And then,
then,
your kiss invaded lips,
bare
Before the dawn.
I
slumped against a car.
My mouth
still
hides the wound, a blueish scar.
