Lagom

Arriving, I began to turn to the house,

When on the green spring bush was stopped by

The contrast of an orange butterfly.

In that catching did I lose my way,

I did not know which one was home.

And turning made moot, this gray sidewalk became

Now a contained catacomb,

Whose colors against others

In hard beauty named my hard syndrome:

‘Fear to lose the love desire,

So lead a life below the fire—

So leave to drown the live high-wire—

Before the power hits you.’

My cell came out to capture love,

To keep close color, space, and song,

And my subject stilled thereof, as though

She thought she’d play along, as though

She knew the catching time,

But in her inkéd battlefield lines,

As though she knew the catch wasn’t mine,

She wrote the word infinitely and smiled—

Can one with oneself rhyme—

Love

With

Love?

And therein lay me mute.

And therein hold this larva brute

Before the coward symmetry.

My web is not just for pretty imagery

But a distant drumming lute,

A hum and beat in one fell swoop.

So to this Goldilocks Gal give bloom:

Give porridge hot and sleeping room,

And knock not once but thrice divine,

Upon this door not mine nor thine—

We all know how much for a storied shrine—

When ‘A or B?’ choose 3 by your own design,

And upon arriving, when you turn, turn once more,

Turn, until the butterfly trap I learn.