Café Terrace at Night
        after Van Gogh

The ladies and gentleman, dapper. Astral lanterns glare gaily: the formerly ominous sky, candelabrad and gilded and precious.

(It's Venice. Or Paris.
They're tipsy. They're gorgeous.)

Verandas are paintings for passersby, glaze-eyed, unstumbling, unfazed by the cobblestoned goings. The patrons, bedazzled on red woven rugs, drink café au lait, limoncello, and wine.

(And her? No really...she's fine.)

Though the awning's aslant, and the golden patina makes faceless and foregone, a shape of a shadow. A man in a doorway. A man she might know.

(Please go. Please go.)

And the curve of his coat summons thoughts of a lamp glinting harshly off mirrors she'd dampened with gauze. That lowing, that losing. That lowering light.

(One terrible night gives all other nights pause.)

But the stars. The stars. The promenade hours. The weather and color. The memories severed by laughter, its washing, its waves. No one gone, no one grave.

No graves.

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Copyright © 2015 Jessica Piazza All rights reserved
from This is not a sky
Black Lawrence Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission