Early Aughts

A recording starts playing

The White Peacock. Memory

Jolts awake, runs to the door

Of a closet, the princess

Closet of long-lost Paula

Where she squirreled away secrets—

Liquor in over-the-door

Shoe-organizer pockets,

Pills behind infant ashes,

Black opera gloves, sex toys—

To start rummaging around.

How she hated classical,

Especially anything

Pensive and slow, like this

Piece, or The Lake at Evening,

Or Pavane pour une infante

Défunte—any piece mawkish

And romantic maddened her,

Not for typical reasons

Of taste, but for her own dread

Of how easily she could

Drown in sorrows in the air.

Memory digs all this up,

In a flash, plus blazing days

When, after dropping her off

At the airport for work trips,

One could drive home and clean up

The place she’d left in a state,

City sunlight throwing bars

Of white through the greens and golds

And garnets she called jewel

Colors, while the stereo

Played all the imagistic,

Romantic, mawkish, pensive

Pieces it could hold. The end

Would be soon, but not for now.