Poetry Friday, a.k.a. Brautigan Saturday

A Mid-February Sky Dance

Dance toward me, please, as
if you were a star
with light-years piled
on top of your hair,
smiling,

and I will dance toward you
as if I were darkness
with bats piled like a hat
on top of my head.

I had thought I would take a break from the Brautigan, so I started writing a poem yesterday morning with the intention of posting it. Then I had to leave to teach, and I was too tired and museless to return to it last night.

This morning I decided we all still needed the Brautigan anyway, at least enough to get us through the winter. I had a vague memory of a Brautigan poem called "February 15," which turned out to be this. Now that I read it, I think I will include yesterday's poem with it. So here it is, drafty and unfinished, but my own mid-February poem.

Carlton Arms

Room 6C, corner of 3rd and 25th,
The goddess room you called it, rolling over,
Reaching out, covering your eyes with green
Flimsy fabric straying from the window,
Breeze-blown veil for this, your rare hangover.

Please please please aspirin please, if you will.
I will, I say without saying, already
On my way out of your arms, out of doors.

65 degrees on February 15,
Weak wintry morning sun, city well awake,
Shopkeepers sweeping water, melting snow,
Away from shop doors, creating a dance
Of passersby, skirting moving edges.

Away from you, I gather myself, tight
Into the smoke of the day’s first cigarette.
Duane Reade, coffee stand, you, back to you.

We spent that whole day in your hangover,
In the weird green light of the goddess room,
In the rebel breeze of a rebel day.

I told you I felt like a made-up image
From a very old daydream, from my own
Little-girl daydream, like I was not here now,
But there, under a West Virginia tree,
Dreaming 6C, corner of 3rd and 25th.