She said if you cup your hands just right and look through them,
you can frame a castle. Take the spot where the sun hits brightest,
away from the sliding moss and dirt driven moat. Besiege the
noble height, feeling walls as if it was home. It was the facade
of peasants' plenty, where I modeled for you. The muse to
the incoherent shutter of frames that would cease in frustration.
She wished the dandelions from Versailles and persistence from
Angkor. Still, my eyelids grew warm and red, smiling
innocently with hushed pride. She was a dreamer, born
looking up at stone walls, the body for a throne
she took rightly with possession. A fruitful balance of
melancholy and mockery that warranted a crown.
We entered through the front doors. The drawbridge down so
long the chains were gone. The foyer empty of all but
rude graffiti and dust that marked our steps through the
citadel, tracing interruptions. She took a picture.
With the wind, the floorboards sung of peasant dreams,
the fateful glare of old phantoms sustained by
filtered sunlight. Pitiful candlelight flickering on and off,
unable to withstand the weight of this responsibility. Together,
we waltzed where a queen once walked, with grace we
became one to the smell of Moth-eaten cotton,
We ended in the grand room, found a piano with no keys. Tattered curtains
peeling softly to lame greys. Pieces of fine china
and carved glass scattered like a mosaic
a king in the picture on the wall.