Defense

We were thinking: jeweled –
a sapphire’s blue –
something anyway

that fooled the eye into believing
all was well and settled,
gracefully in place;

and then perhaps we’d add
a brace of silk,
the lapidary hue of clabbered milk,

to drape around the thing
to juxtapose with – bring a lustrous
softness to – the hardness of the gem;

and then we’d prop a beveled
mirror at its hem to capture
baldly in its center

and refracted at its edges
the reflection of the pretty paradox
in glass: candlelight

would flicker in it – past
and through the shadows
and the glints which would,

we thought, quite
conjure up a mystery –
whose cinematic hints

and contrasts might distract us
from the error of pretending
that we weren’t feeling terror.

.