Aubergine

Sugar down the syrup in the Queen Anne's lace

Shining in the light of nightshade

Cultivating unsophistication in my face

Trying to think of nothing to say

Grapes gone sour and the spinach went to seed

(it was spindly and sick from the outset)

Waiting for the hour with a wherewithal to leave

Patient as a dog for its master

Aubergine

The Labrador was locked through the promontory rock

She called down, said time is an illusion

An inconsequential shift as the continents drift

But my confidence was crushed and I miss you regardless

Aubergine

Aubergine

You can be your body but please don't mind

if I don't fancy myself mine - you at 32 still tied to

your poor mother's apron strings!

Sorrel in the gravel and the saffron robe

Sleeping like a shark in the cord grass

until I saw how far I traveled down the solipsistic

road

I climbed out to ask for directions

There was not a pond in sight and here I'm gasping like

a fish

In the desert with a basket full of eggplants

who asked about the passage of the Bible on my wrists

But I couldn't catch my breath enough to answer