Lana M. Wiggins (D2D

THREE PHOTOGRAPHS, THREE DAYS

(For Keith - 1954-2005)

Now that you are dead

And I have spent the last 3 days

Reliving the madness that was our lives

I know salvation forged from refuge.

The self-induced illusion of mirrors

Lining the house we created of stones

And sticks of dynamite

Has finally crumbled.

The ashes of your life

And body drift in circles

Outnumbered by squares and disbelievers.

How comfortable you must be now

In your default redemption and weightlessness.

Here we were, my love,

On the streets of plated gold,

Borrowing a minute and escaping yet another

Tragedy by the skin of our collective dentistry,

Skimming the surface of a water-color dream

In multi-dimensional confusion.

You are now my Patron Saint of Saturday night,

And I know that you will keep it flowing,

Flowing like the dusty trail of drama and intrigue

We called a marriage for the sake of others

Who couldn’t see us drowning in rivers

Of glass and amber-stained reality.

I rummaged through our secrets today

Without stopping to think,

And you were there in my delusion

Wishing me well while reminding me

Of my part in your death

By my absence in your life.

So how does it feel now to know

Those mysterious sounds that haunted me?

The unleashed Dragons

Brushing against my Halls of Amenti

For 20 seconds at a time . . .

Our own blood beating in measures.

We couldn’t stop counting

Yet we never heard the rhythms

Bouncing back and forth and back again.

You would have been my hero had you only believed

I was strong enough for both of us

And that I never lived the life you thought I lived

Except in my mind and in your guilt.

I have only 3 photographs of you now,

A sad progression of the life we loved and lost,

In purple haze misery and interdependent allowances

Of mischief and mayhem.

I would have shed my own skin to save yours,

But pride got the best of pride.

So we burned out, wasting another chance

To untangle the mysterious bravado that motivated me

And terrified you all those years ago.

There is small salvation in memories and photographs

Of a life misused now that you are dead

And I have spent the last 3 days

Reliving the madness that was our lives.

Lana M. Wiggins currently resides in New Orleans where she is an Instructor of English at the University of New Orleans. This poem is from her recently completed manuscript titled, Notes From Refuge, which was written during her own time of refuge from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina ravaged her city.

Dance to Death, Issue II