Larger Than Life
          The only joy is to begin.
                        —CESAR PAVESE

And so it came to pass that the immortal,
the famous, the household names visited, falling
like rain that wakes you up, and you sink
back to sleep, satisfied with the deeper course
of the dream. Through library windows
they sifted. Moonlight's cool nothing fingered

the spines, their gold names stamped beside the gold
names of rivals. Coward, lout, optimist, idler,
every virtue and flaw absolved in ink
and perfect binding. In galleries they found
their paintings in strange frames, near stranger brethren.
Sunlight splashing a cool satin skirt,

delightful wracking of a month, how paint
could carry the right sense of encroachment
and slippage—seemed unavailing, accusing
like the empty plate of an absent guest.
Beneath a glowing red EXIT a sleeping guard
coughed, stretched, and revealed in his hand

the yellow leather of a banana peel.
In the streets more treasure, cupcake wrapper
somersaulting, roofs pitching the wind
down their backs, trees tasting the rush of rain.
Just to touch the unaccountable flippant weeds . . .
But bargaining cannot return a body.

Copyright © 2009 Michelle Boisseau All rights reserved
from A Sunday in God-Years
The University of Arkansas Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission