I was his favorite, simply that.
And you can see
for yourself why it might have been so:
the lushest, least
likely to weary the eyes of all
the serried wavelengths.
Never obvious.
My bit
of the spectrum unstable somehow,
in a way that kept
bringing him back. Search
image
on your browser and you’ll see
what I mean.
I’ve never had the advantage of
sculptural
beauty, as the lily has, I haven’t
been able to boast
that stricture of line. That making-
no-mistakes. God
knows I’ve wished for it, beggars
can dream.
But no. Some neither-this-nor
that turns out to be
my sphere. Some manyness rather
than singular
perfection. Which I like to think
he thought about.
He made this place.
They named it
for him. And upholstered the seats
in heliotrope,
whose cluster of vowels and con-
sonants
he loved like my blue-going-violet-
with-touches-of-
gray. The vocal colors. Warm-up,
nightly, before
the play. So you see, they were
wrong, the ones
who called me unrequited. I
was in his throat,
among the folds and ridges and
beyond them to
the very dome upon whose curve
the heart resides.
Just think what it used to be then,
in the hour before
they’d let the rest of you in:
my many faces toward
the sun who spoke—no, sang—
my name.
