mmmmdcxxxviii

You Put a Spell on Me

there was a lady,
or at least i believe
that she was. i cannot
say exactly, but whoever

it was, well, she’d,
they’d peer through
this broken set of
vertical blinds—

and this would be
all the night long
and through the day,
all the way back

to dusk again—and
this, although i never
once could see their
lips—with such a hunger

and a determination—
i could see this with
ease staring into the
deep pools of their eyes,

eyes that wore this
mystery human’s (i
am pretty sure it
was a human)

veritable heart upon
its sleeve, which makes
no sense but perhaps
you can feel from this

peculiar illogic a vicinity
of nearby what i might
mean. i didn’t think
of that person veering

through those broken
blinds down at me for
those two weeks as
witch or even maleficent

in any way, but it is clear
that magic, in some way,
was being concocted and
swam like an electric breeze

in and around me during
each of those fourteen
glorious days. i’d just
finished some very

important travels and,
well, it was the first among
many long-held plans that
had finally come to fruition,

and that...matronly...person
stared down upon me and
for two solid weeks acted
simply as a conduit with

which to provide me
with this life, a kind of
motivation i’d not been
able to muster for decades.

and ever since then, a
small period of time
that has now settled
itself within me as a

distant, dizzy and glorious
transition, as if the person—
a photograph over one
month in an illustrated

calendar, a calendar in
which each new month
showcased a photograph
of graffiti, that was it, there

was no real person, no
witch, no magician,
there was simply a
depiction of so-called

artistic vandalism
looking over me—
after which i had 

almost an entire life

drained to near-
extinction, was
being poured, that

she was pouring it

carefully back
into me, into
what i’m sure
is my soul, or

whatever
exists within
me that most
resembles my

idea of one,
so that i became
alive again, really.
or i write these

words with more
than just a fervor
for hope that it
might truly happen,

just as i tell you that
it has in, order to
make it so.  alone i sit,
(that benevolent character

long gone), conjuring,
ordering it to be so.