She, a quiet paper rose
that bellowed as a shape in the doorway
moved swiftly like the falling snow
which once began to fall
called upon her eyes to flutter madly

And I, with my pseudo esthete remarks
passed faintly in the limelight
unaware of what the balance held
I continued to read from dead russian poets
and strummed my guitar between the silences

Long before the Sun had died
an upper lip had trembled
and the cold; perhaps pretended
that the fluttering of eyes
would never beat upon my hands
like a moth raging
against the seduction of a flame

Such a novelty had this charade become
that the untangeling of amber leaves
reamained hidden obscurely in the depths of white
between the rosebush and the iris black

And I, with my bravado
caressed the candle’s flame
stalling the shape in the doorway
long after she had left the room

Till the eloquent light
withered in melancholic nostalgia;
the weight of such tragedy
I was aware