The Queen of Night and The Silver Foxes

from A BIRTHDAY POEM FOR CYNTHIA

Homage To Edmund Waller

Go to Cynthia, rose,
Tell her that I thought of her
This morning when the sun came
Oakcrowned though my window,
And the woodthrush sang
His soft metallic
Somewhere in the darker spaces
As if he knew
[What's hidden from the mundane warblers]
Where the great-horned owl
Will spend the day until he
Sends his vibrant bassnotes
Through my windowsill and bed and heart.
And then, aroused from sleep,
Again my mind goes out to her
Across the city
Where she breathes and dreams
Of things unknown to me,
In her room of soft pastels,
A few antiques and concert posters,
Her matted photographs,
The memories of family,
When the past has tempered
Her modernity.

* * * * * *
Go tell her, rose,
How the woodthrush knew,
Or seemed to know,
Where my pair of foxes lay
So close in moonbound quietness,
As if each shared
A single warm wet lovely fur,
The pant and faint sweet barking
Of the one mouth.
Go tell her how the flutesong said
My foxes touched their once far cooler nosetips
And froze like marble bookends.
And onyx butterfly,
A valentine to the Queen of Night.
[Sometime I think she is the Queen of Night]
And go tell her, if you dare,
How my foxes run their universe:
One pair of deep bright eyes
Bound in laser love
To the other pair of deep bright eyes.
Now they lie like holograms
Caught in an emerald stare.
Now like playful dynamos,
Engendered by the owl,
They fashion foxfur sparks and flashes
Through their lair.

And, Cynthia,
One night in old St. Louis,
After the music in the cloudswept, starlit park
[We both mistook the jets
For threatening thunder]
After the drinks,
The piano bar,
Our hearts still raising songs
On one another's lips,
[I tell you, Rose!]
As the foxes,
So did we.

Max Edward Cordonnier
First Movement from an 80's poem