When Father Decided He Did Not Love Her Anymore

Tonight I will remember the model With the wide, sad mouth Who used to pose for father Because I love the dangers of memory, The boarded window and door, Rooms where one bare bulb Makes shadows swell up the wall. And yet I recall only vaguely The way her hem rustled on the floor Like sand against tin Laisse-moi tranquille, epicier, It said because I want it to Say something memorable. I want her back That brilliant, farfetched woman Who drank coffee in our garden And the days father fed me Absinthe through a sugar cube So I would be asleep by noon And wake to find Ramona posing Naked with a tambourine. Tonight the whole world is a garden In which the immortal whispers Something about art And its opportunities: Memory like a bolt of silk In a tailor’s arms Can be made into anything Especially misfortune, Especially the year Ramona spent In a wrath almost Biblical And so far from the world Not even the moon could find Her study in Paris Where the doors opened to the river.