Sylvia Poem by John Courtney

We watch her sleep
where beauty doubles,
handsome city lips
sail childless shores,

no one sleeps together
in beds or trees,
names blazing across
the court of life,

candlelight horses run
on cold floors,
love is heated with
burning letters.

We lay beside her
skeleton tending color,
the morning comes
circling back for us,

the makeup bag opens
and shuts like a cell,
doom and her daddy
march down the stairs,

she told me the cats
scratched her arms,
and I believed her as
she walked past me.

At breakfast we lose
her smile to taste
the ungodly red
of her mirror,

at lunch we lose
her completely,

our very finest lover
wanting to hide again
in the dark flower,

the cold floors are everywhere.