Ways She Uses Me

Late morning rain – erasing time –
her April iridescence hinted at behind:
I’m once again Manhattan’s passionate

indentured servant, grateful slave:
I crave the soft-rhyme daze she gives me:
glaze of lamplight on brocade:

senses of a century ago invoke, exhume
the mellow looming glow and private
quiet tenderness of half-lit room –

I am the liquid gray-pearl light outside,
I am the inward flame of her enfolding
frame of home: I’m only what her grand

Imagination will admit: I am her bold
refusal to submit: her hidden history:
her Jamesian experience of mystery:

garbed in the gold of lavishly appointed
Nineteen-Hundred-Nine: I am her fine
accoutrements: I face her laden Meissen

plate: I am the polished silver spoon
and knife and fork to be deployed –
enjoyed – by my extravagant New York.

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