Elegy for Mandy

Petticoats and blossoms
and secrets and charm;
please come fix my dolly,
she's broken her arm.

Through a whisper and a song
I survey a concrete savage from his belly.

(Won't someone love me?  Won't someone come love me?)

I stand, a silvery maiden, behind a dusty, dimming dream
looking backward for him

(Fuzzy moustache and streak of wavy brown hair,
a voice that booms and conquers me with love.)

Will he come again?
Will his feet, heavy and slow, whisper past and
crunch and crackle through the snows of my life
and enter my door?

Licorice and gumdrops
and toys on parade;
and where is my pretty,
my little blue maid.

They come and go, the faceless men,
the nameless men,
shining knights in rusted armor,
bearing a banner whose life is but a moment.

("Ah, you're a good one!  I like big men!")

My life is measured in a sprinkle of moments.
A brief pleasure is my gift
in exchange for my mind's agony.

And a slightly pretty woman
     dusts her soul off
             and creeps slowly
                  in tomb beat
                      toward
                           oblivion......

Pianos and bracelets,
a tinkle, a glim;
a harp plays in heaven
a little girls hymn.