Ah, My Heart!

My train is late,
but you've overslept.
I read Chabon on a 17th
Street stoop until half-past
twelve, then meet you
on the top floor of the Himalayan
art museum.

No one paints like this.
It must have been scratched
with the back of the brush
because even the royal red
milieu of certain tapestries
is embroidered with swirls
so minute they could be
amoeba eyelashes or the footprints
of wind-babies.

I bite my lip
like the wrathful dieties,
bug-eyed and blue,
balanced on one foot
crushing the idea of fear
while being fear itself.
Of course, that's the only
thing that art can do,
put the unknown, the unnameable,
into human terms.
Give a face to gluttony
and we can all avoid his jowls.

That's a risky road to go down:
representation.
Soon all my friends and enemies
are just stand-ins for the truth.

Andrea is the idea of fun,
Kolhede chaos or now,
Brendan is the buddha,
Erin is my fear of time.
Richard, ha, he's rapture
Ryan is success or dread,
Christian's distance
Kevin is false confidence
I'm just empty eyes.

None of this is quite on point.
The key is that
the mandalas were meant
to be hung above our heads,
making us look up
because from head-on
you can't perceive
the gold thread in the stitching
or the bodies in the leaves
of the lotus.