True Confessions


Our Lady of the Shadows

“a great slab of hazel
eyes cultivated precision”
—Aaron Shurin,
“The Self,” A Door

Seattle has a hard mouth—
Thin cruel lips nevertheless
Cart-wheeling me down 45th
Continuous flood of U-District
Lights, Tiara tilting on my
Forehead, trying to will my
Boyfriend to please stay…

Memory a hazel-eyed boy—
Shuffling the deck whenever
I tell the story of how I fell
Down the Elevator Shaft of
Love all the way down to the
Bargain Basement of abject
Despair & Despondency SPLAT!!!

Our Lady of the Shadows—
Taking me in, lost Wayward Girl,
Pregnant with Nostalgia, so very
Confused by Love, troubled teen
That I was, such a sullen moody
Pouty Pugetopolis child, lost
Keepsake at Heaven’s Gate…

It was a vast temple devoted—
To Lost Love, long empty corridors
Devoted to lost young Abydos kings,
Stoic pyramids leaning in the moonlight,
The ancient Nile taking in wayward
Young Moses babes swaddled in
Reeds and cat-tails and sorrow…

Who needs armies, kings, princes—
Fast chariots, shields of power, golden
Boyz crowned by coiled cobra caduceus,
Jeweled frowning foreheads of young
King Tutankhamun overlords when
You’re pregnant, down & out, full of
Anything but Unrequited Love…

Too much Love got me in Trouble—
The Seattle sky turning into a scudding
Craving crawling Porky Pig Love Sty,
Overhead a vast continuous slimy slug
Fest race track, full of subliminal Seattle
Snarkery worse than any poor Pioneer
Square skid-row bum could ever imagine.

Gone the smooth velvet Skyline of Love—
Feeling him up in bed in the morning,
My fingers crawling over his muscular
Gymnast Deltoids and pale pecs so fine,
My Svelte smooth moody young pouty
Vain sullen put-upon Freshman loverboy
Fricassée de Poulet à l'Ancienne…

Giving it up isn’t easy, my dears—
Despite what Elizabeth Bishop says
About Key West, Quai d’Orléans,
Visits to St. Elizabeths, Cootchie,
Sleeping on the Ceiling, Brazilian
Tragedies, Sonnets of Intimacy—
And the Art of Letting Love Go…

Nor is Trollope’s Journal true—
Or the View of the Capitol from
The Library of Congress without
Cold War closetry back then—
Anymore than now peering over
Puget Sound from the Tower
Of Lost Love in Volunteer Park…

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