Three in a Maze and a Monster (Vertigo)

1.

Directed to take in with her eyes the whole
of San Francisco Bay, Kim Novak saw only
a hint of its immensity, wound in one reel

the scenes that turned her blonde hair to gin
or the color of that which drives any woman
to visit graveyards in the afternoon, the sun

already well into her daily ablution. Day is
also the time we indulge in our own routine,
remaking our lips the color of California,

Pacific calling to us and we come pretending
to recognize the voice that leads us there,
the same voice that when we speak, we hear.

2.

Jimmy Stewart is the Theseus in this story,
the nine-to-fiver thinking with his kindness
he can kill the thing inside her. But he can't.

What says come to me says so urgently.
In her gray she drifts toward the headstone
that bears her name, to be home, to rest.

Romantic, Hitch must've said, these many,
many blondes and Kim Novak of course
was no exception. She could reflect in one

tight close up suspense till suspense was
a tower to fall from and you could see
in her eyes that falling, everyone wanting

to save her, press her against their realness.
But beauty sometimes is empty. In filling
a space we make our contract, shake on it.

Copyright © 2009 Lesley Jenike All rights reserved
from Ghost of Fashion
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Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission