What's Profoundly Sad

is often beautiful. Sorrow,
spit from a fireplug uncorked
in a fatal pileup, drums
pity on black bumbershoots

opening like a Caillebotte
exhibit. Despondency
fills the cup of the young mother
slumped against a weathered

blue balustrade, checkered robe
undone, & the colicky baby
sucking a melancholy breast,
having tasted despair too

early, grows up suicidal
like Schumann, Van Gogh
or Marilyn Monroe maybe.
These days, seeing no one,

hearing nothing but moaning
& heavy breathing, climbing
the interminable flights
to my dark efficiency,

I sit beside the window, bare
elm branches straining
to hold a sky flushed
with artificial clouds. Dusk

palls mottled rooftops, & just
when I think no hope is left,
the last dancing ray disappears
like Giselle into the forest.

(as appeared in Main Street Rag)