Tribute to an Upper West Side Evening
for Inna
somewhere there must be a road that
leads away from muffled voices &
buses blowing smoke a place where
we hear the ocean’s whisper & the
rustle of palm trees whether from
lust or imaginable tomorrows
becoming new with the waves
she coaxes eyes that lead a
moonlit chorus though happy now
life is brief ask the dragonfly
yielding its purple wings to autumn
beneath a veil of frost & fire
ascending with tenors or laughing
children who grasp shadows
dressed in gypsy petals
explorers etched in moments of
release in the hollow of violins
measuring time under stars & branches
though it feels like forever such days
are resisted only momentarily
slow raptures of now that outline her smile
drowning in its desire to be everywhere
at once in its endless variations of
pre-war homes & urban renewal
© 2015 John Casquarelli (First published in The Lonely Crowd)
