Magnolia Song
(for The Beloved and in honor of Arthur Rimbaud)

… the magnolias are far away – still, I sing, begging
them for bridges to
brood with stanzas of butterflies
in the suffocation around and
heat mocking the sea where once we walked the shore
beneath the cruel commas of hawks
showering seraphimic curses, 
pink roses upon storms
flung upward from spotted, inverted baskets, northern Iranian
mountains
aching
praying
wandering
the cavern between the olive-minuet of your eyes and
mine absconding their color from above and knitted by
anguished waves stumbling, floundering
into lunar mercury,
the slant of scouring rain
throwing blue into our faces
in cadences
dribbling from
lemons and leaves of tea, strong with riots
of black peppers hurting our tongues
along the central street
of our knowing, speaking
silence
without riddles
yet wrapped about our shoulders
with brazen mysteries hovering above
the staring magnolias
which now have crowded in...
… though I still sing
and always will...

… of you...