Revelair

                                      Let me stream you a story, one of three speeds.
Follow the shadow undulating on the wall, sticking to my circuit as I fan
out the air in predictable directions. Where should we not hurry to go? 
Smoothly tilt and round and up and down and oh-so smoothly
remember it’s summer and the answer is nowhere, not at least
until the sun dies down.

                                  Let me stream you a story in the frame
of the breeze I stir, in imitation tortoiseshell and flaking gold.
Circa nineteen-fifty: a background player with a bit part,
my silent role rotating glints of chrome into the noir.
Woman enters—strikes match—turns startled to the door.
That’s me there, troubling a wave of Baby Bacall’s hair over her shoulder.
Same again to the raven’s-wing permanent of a Betty more familiar,
in the setting of a summer just like this.                               

                                       Now let me stream yours: overhead, a ceiling affair
four weeping walls and the attar of monsoon billowing under your door?
Kindly continue dreaming backwards while I carve through
this hot and tender stone with my teardrop blades and tiger’s purr.
Feel your bedsheet rippling now and then in waves.
                                        I will always return to you—always.