The Dresser Poem by Tom Hamilton

The girls are posing by the billiard pockets.
Clogging the soothing music like hair in a drain.
There is stuff men don't see, different ways which they're hurt.
They are not as infallible as their pin-up counterparts.
With their many torturous levers inside them.
Some winds you'll take, others cover in smoke.
I'd disgrace myself then them by calling a hole. But no so

Home.

The red numbers on my digital clock
judge me with barbarous, ill harboring eyes.
It's not like I'll dream, it's more like I'll die.

I can you sitting serenely at the vanity.
Your shoulders squared like the Queen of Diamonds.
I'm hypnotized by the sanctity streaked in your hair.
There's a holiness there which you cover with a bonnet.
I must rush from the bed to beg you to free it.
To kneel at your heel like some old time proposal.
Wanting only to worship and touch your fabric static.
But my words turn to chirps; like nonsensical birdcalls.
Until you stand up like a protester at a wedding.
I lunge for the life jacket; the flap of your nightgown.
Still you fade from my fist as an opposite mist
and move through me as if I were made out of pollen.
Your dawn crayon eyes only focused on fashion.
You walk to the dresser.

The day passes fast and blurry like subway scenery.
Fool Hall: if I beebee my eyes to distant heat and squint.
I could see you with the ugly withered flowers on that wall.
wondering if they'll ever be at anyone's beckon call.

Or maybe… maybe…

brushing through those strands of a rarity, so precious,
selecting sweet gold from your various cosmetics.
As if you could add to your wondrous beauty
or if there was a dream where you could see me.

Fool Hall: I sidle up to the bar like tightening a tie.
The girls seem inhuman, shrieking, giggling and wrestling.
I stare at the stinking drink in my tentacle.
Sober, tired and full, but I can't go

Home.
Covered in fractured scents by the shattered shard vanity.
I look for a peaceful piece among the busted reflections.
One with an image of you at the dresser.