What Haunts My Eyes Isn't Can/Can't Poem by Mark Heathcote

What haunts my eyes isn't can/can't
How much money or alms can be earned for wages?
What haunts my eyes is why I too can't fly.
Lord knows I'm green with envy at times.
Working for loose change—petals blowing on the tide
A brush stroke here or two that catches the gospel.

I sing for the bees and sleep on a cactus bed.
I guess this easel is about to flower and suck me in.
What haunts my eyes isn't can/can't
It's a tear I can't somehow wipe away at a wine bar.
What haunts my eyes isn't that it's my birthday today.
And I haven't figured it all out yet.

What haunts my eyes is I want to bare my soul and undress.
And remove every falsehood till I'm broken and found
But secretly I believe I am not that gifted.
Or even that proud, look, I wear no garb of gold.
What haunts my eyes is a memory of when you were mine.
And we interconnected like a jasmine vine in the dew.

And secretly you were mine like a flash of lightning.
Posing in the nude,
Burning my fingers like only you could ever do.
Oh, Picasso had two wives.
And dozens of lovers they did as Picasso's muses.
Six mistresses lit a torch to his Rose Period and set it aflame.

But I am not a pretender.
I want to whisper, Darling, we'll meet later.
Sooner or later after the turpentine dries
And the jasmine flowers fade from sight.
There'll be no can/can't see you later.
Whatever haunts my eyes, I hope it's you whenever I look back.




Pascal Moehlmann: Ekphrastic Writing Challenge, Curated by Kate Copeland

12/6/2024