Member-only story
Apotheosis
Free Verse
The first hour is unsalvageable, and never
was. Anything meant to be done twice
hinged on the possibility of a turn.
You see, we crave the place
sense fails us; as guessing creatures,
show us ephemera. The knackered odds
delight, like the swan that cracks the texture
of the pond as the flash goes off. We breathe
easier with the miracle in our blood.
Wilde had an image for this, of cherries
flooded by the moon. That image haunts me
because then I understand Basil.
His red print from the Hesperides
is a harsher remnant, the unswallowed pit
or the lone sighting on the water. Unfathomable
as it is, a plucked fruit is a shed fruit.
A crested colour. For the rejecting eye,
one last self-immolating lustre.
Truth is, I am only halfway through
the fiction. Basil watches Dorian
and a lens flare consecrates the confessional
glimpse. He will not renounce,
not while the light is gliding, hanging
still, gilding the surface.
