The singer

There is a moment
between her appearance on stage
and the audience wanting to
take possession of her
where she dismisses their
expectations
and causes me
and everyone else
to consider her carefully.

In that emptiness I listen
with an aching discernment
and cruel appreciation
for the truth of her beauty
and the beauty of her truth:

that she is the last glass
of a liquor I will never taste again.

Her essence
so fragile
is untouchable
though the molestings she has suffered
have tuned her perfectly.

That stark sobriety
is the perfect canvas
for a soul poured out,
drunk with daydreams,
secreting the purest of nectar
with the most intoxicating scent,
desperately tugging away from the loneliness
and missing the moon

to fall upon my undeserving ears;
casting a terrible spell
of inconsolable longing
upon my heart's imagination

©02.24.2017 ebn