Of Sal Bass and Other Concerns

I'm colder than a February

salmon out of season,

aching for her warm caress

to fold me into slumberland.

The rain runs down the periphery

of the cracks within my conscience,

a chill and wet I've known too well

without umbrella or galoshes.

April looms across the damp

of March distended and corroded;

teasing, loving, sour sarcastic,

she drains me for the springtime thaw.

Yet still distant sirens

splash curbside vendors

struggling for dominance

in city scape paintings.

The perpetual motion

of life lived elsewhere,

contrasts with the rigor

of my hardened self portrait.

The colors run

down the easel,

frightful from me

until I'm translucent gone.

Real, real gone.