Confession to the Dark Lady

by

Tim Mayo

to A.

Now I am an old man touching desire
like the nombril of my body,
picking lint out of the center of my being,
folding myself to sleep like a towel.
I dream of your lips red as a welt
against your white face, and I cannot
imagine your teeth, because the redness
of my dream blooms so vermillion--
but you must have smiled at me, once,
making the measured grimace of my face
relax its muscles, letting something,
hard as a pearl, go limp in my brain.

 

 

 

Tim Mayo has been on the Author Committee of the Brattleboro Literary Festival since it’s inception in 2002. His poems have appeared in The Atlanta Review, The Bennington Review, Paris/Atlantic, Four Corners, Poet Lore, 5 A.M. and The Chrysalis Reader. He was a Semi-Finalist in the “Discovery”/The Nation 2000 Poetry Contest and recently received a grant from the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT.

 

 

 

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