Duane Locke: Poem
A DARK HAIRED WOMAN NEXT DOOR
Her eyes were bandstands
Without an orchestra;
A promise of waltzes
Turned out to be a platform
Of empty brown chairs.
I watched her stand alone at a party
In front of an apple grove.
She stood under the reddest apple
In the mural on the wall.
She refused the wine
Brought on a bamboo tray.
Instead, she drank ashes,
Ashes from burnt black lace flowers.
It was rumored that she
Was once embraced
By the hands of the gulf,
But she would not allow
The gulf to take off its thick gloves.
Duane Locke has had over 2,000 of his own poems published in over 500 print magazines such as American
Poetry Review, Nation, Literary Quarterly, Black Moon, and Bitter Oleander, is author of 14 books of poems, his
latest being
WATCHING WISTERIA.
