Amaranthine and her tiger-eyes

Amaranthine and her tiger-eyes await me blushing; my stride the length of sleeping mountains, my heart an ocean. It is cold on the eve of fair June approaching. Barabbas sitting, whistling at the girls as they walk by. Come, he says, let us pluck a few feathers, let us wait for the moon to lift us upon her breast. The orange peels slowly, the church bells ring, I can hear the tantara, the bay which crashes from afar, as the café door closes his shadow kisses the floor. I take leave, I begin again to walk. Amaranthine, who lay upon the soft jade, doused of a burnt orange.

I pass the patrons of the inn wiping away the fog, ale after a day’s toil. The procuress catches me from the corner where the crows have kissed, motions me to enter with her thin taut lips witch I catch through the window. The scent of her amber curls; the sun sitting upon her vanity combing.

I sit and order softly something hearty, full of body, foaming. Her hair is red, how I like her red hair I thought, her bodice rather charming. She turns, glittering, she turns again, a cup overflowing. I peel the top with my tongue turning to face the restless. Heels kiss the floor; rouge lipped kisses on the smug cheeks grinning.

Amaranthine and her crimson lips

Amaranthine and her crimson lips the night I lit a candle, blushing, to lay upon my untouched cheek to keep her through the evening.

A woman approaches, blanketed, milky white clouds of smoke. She sits upon my leg; the bundles of her fitted flowing dressing gown brush me. Elsa, a rose petal falling, sedulous, her languor is charming. Gazing eye-to-eye, rosy noses touching, childlike fancies, Amaranthine and I.

Elsa from afar, her plum like body dangling. Amaranthine and her father are walking. I lay my eyes upon her as winter’s first snow upon the street. Her father is portly, her parasol bouncing, they fade into the song of all the passersby.

I would visit grandfather with the hopes of passing her. Strolling slowly, I turn the corner, a glance cast over my shoulder. To see her made the day glorious, the night even more, when each star became a freckle upon the cosmic skin of an imagined Amaranthine, who covered the earth till morning with the pallor of her abundant glow.

Beneath a tree in the orchard of Grandfathers vineyard, I would take to sitting, praying on Sunday the next for a glimpse of the girl whom I longed to possess. In the distance I can her grandfather approaching softly, as if not to break the grass beneath his giant feet. He smiles slowly, places my hand within his palm, his wrinkled sun bathed skin, saying always, ‘Come and let us walk.’

Amaranthine my love forgotten

‘My child’, she says, ‘my darling, Mary my blessed mother,’ her bedroom is just above. Her hips sway upon the stairs; the undulating ocean of her supernal eyes. Elsa, I say, and bury her beneath a violet.

Grandfather has since left, my mother, father, still with open eyes. Grandpa, I say, may you be warm beneath the brocade of a thousand undying smiles, a sun which never rests her head. Amaranthine my love forgotten, I pass the church, the tired houses, tired lights waiting to be put to bed.

In the morning mother used to wake us with song, father having already left before our dreams had ended. She would dress us, with comb she would tend to our little heads, pressing, parting, sending us along as she watched until we disappeared into the depths of where her vision could not reach, held within the well of her eyelids.

It appears some nights that the stars I may touch; crumbling, flowering sparks of gold, the lives of others, the life of my own, the pages from the beneath the splendid oak in the campo santo. I hear her calling, her voice the sound of the unadulterated, Amaranthine like a violet. In my dreams I approach her; delicious are the sugarplums, the honey. We walk towards snow-capped mansions. In the campo santo we hear the song of the pariahs. ‘Listen,’ she says, ‘can you hear the broken voices?’ She falls, obsequious beneath the moons eternal teardrops which we drink of until we are full, heavy and without breath, lazy and we lay forever.

I am awake, not sour; an iris yawns, I say, ‘Quiet iris, the sun is still asleep.’ Barabbas yawning, his breathe the death of grapes. From afar I can hear the bells held within song. It is as I remember and I remember it is Sunday. I spoon from my eyes sleeps leftover kisses, tumbling, dusting my chin. The thick midnight purls beneath us. The world yawns and I yawn with her, waiting for the pearl.

Amaranthine and the clouds within her eyes

Amaranthine and the clouds within her eyes, pleading that the stars not fall.  Down the piano steps I walk, the velvet august night, the town, she waterfalls, the water, I gently touch her, I touch only her water soft hands. It is not time it is timelessness. Barabbas I say, do you dream as I of the night unmasked?

I imagine mother and I carrying on endlessly in conversation, the echoes timeless within bounce between our soft hearts. I imagine to peel her open, to free all that I have not known of her, of the love she has given, of love lost, her disappointments; all of the joy it blooms like a rose in the garden wrapped within her lungs. I have a view as of late before just a wall, the vines now flow into the luminous street; I envy the sounds which only my ears can touch, the puddles beneath the feet, the rain, the rooftops drip dropping from above Amaranthine in her pelerine.