my attic window

my mistress called me up this morning
told me to come post-haste
                          and you know when she uses old words like that
                 it's something that no plastic surgery can erase

so I stumble up the spine of another Maverick novel
        and put on costume beard and dressing gown
     like Sherlock Holmes without a pipe
         and a crooked cap

I catch my thievery breath;  stifle the taxi driver
stuff him in his little tobacco box
snuff out the candle
                      and toss the cab into the loft

my attic window, I ascend to Juliette's thrown

      and let her have the dessert of my backhanded moan

my mistress licks the tears from her eyes
      and bleeds with womanhood
             into the scars of her mind

she tells me of fears
and forgotten design

                       and I cancel out artifacts; corrected with thyme

                       murder, she says -- is as simple as love
                       and then she uses piano wire

to demonstrate my ...