Recession Reflection

If it took as long to know you're dead as it takes to tell you're in a recession, a lot of folks would be rotting in the streets.

Fire

For Michele, on her birthday.

The sunlight's sheen
Seemed to light your brown-red hair ablaze
With brilliant, dazzling fire lights,
Sparks, shimmers.

The green depths of your eyes,
So striking, so true,
Caught my gaze,
Caught my heart,
And would not release me,
Will not,
Even til this day.

The sun-warmed apricot glow of your skin
As it caught the reflected blaze, like fire,
Of that copper silk dress,
The vintage dress, shoulder pads removed,
Your own shoulders stronger, broader, finer
Than any dressmaker's dream,
Coppery silk dotted with tiny green birds' eyes
Gazing sharp down its pleated length--
That blaze reflecting in your own fine features,
That dress following your own fine form--
And I was smitten
With a wound to the heart that I bless,
That I will carry precious with me to my grave.

Still, now, thirty years on,
When I see you across the room
Across the table
Across whatever distance or nearness
Or in my own mind's eye, I see this yet:
The green in your eyes, the glow of your skin,
And the fire of the sun in your hair
As when I first saw you
In that bird's-eye copper silk dress.