Caught in my larynx
is a yanking, grinding coercion
deep scratchy scrape.
As if I inhaled too long
on a1940’s Lucky Strike cigarette
leaving twisting, singed rawness.
The dog sniffs my neck at night
trying to rout it out.
When it is cold, nothing happens.
A mummy cast in white stone.
As soon as there is a hint of sunshine,
it takes off its coat
moves right in.
Treading, poking, prying
around my memories.
Boom, it hits, merging past lovers in with its own baggage.
…suddenly, I’m at the train station running.
Missing my connection, my trip, my new life.
Squinting through silver steam plumes
I see my lover.
Waving goodbye, heavy abandonment
soaks my shirt, clawing inside my skin.
I feel it staring inside me.
I feel it and turn to catch it.
Just in time to divert its cast.
Acknowledging my spy, guiltily looking away.
Trolling like scattered smoke.
Wanting my gaze.
The grip is so strong that it can stagnate for years until I spot it.
I saw it in the New York Times Sunday paper.
trapped in Goya’s Carnival masterpiece,
owned by Baron Maurice Herzog, a Hungarian Jew
whom the Nazis luted.
It whispers, “Stay with me,” in a voice
like Sophocles’ Antigone
deprived of the light.
This duende echo
Heard in the dead of night.
Lifts us.
Vibrating flamenco in the covers.
I feel dark sideburns.
Holding us together.
Something peers down from the balcony.
And we ride the ghost guards.