you lived
in italy amid the ruins
generating whispers or even
codes (of conduct)
listened to the statues
the arguments they had
(something to do with truth and eternity
with pleasure or something lost)

you were so very sexy cool in that photograph
in the new yorker i mean everyone’s idea of a devastating beauty
manic poet girl in black (half smoked) cig
in your hand (stabbing time and the electric blue manhattan sky) your hair caught whirling
in the wind like lies caught in the years whirling
in feathery shadows
somewhere towards the end
of the 20th century
it isn’t simple
the work the task to stitch together
the bones and plates
to invent some goddess or muse
with winter
in her eyes

# # #

Charles Talkoff is a graduate of the MA/Writing Program at JHU (class of 2008). His short fiction has appeared in Underground Voices, JMWW, The Midway Review and other publications.

Photo:  Bertrand Gabioud