(Musée Carnavalet, Paris)
Well, it was his desk. An object
he touched thousands of times
though he only wrote in bed,
an imposing ebony wood desk
with twelve drawers into which
he stuffed thousands of pages
dampened by wild, twisting
black-ink river sentences
and the half-opened velvet curtains,
ocean mirrors, torn perfume flowers
of his mind. Nearby, his brass bed
and a glass case holding a sterling silver
nécessaire de toilette, ink wells, pen nibs,
a tuft of pleated blue satin bedspread.
I reached out to touch his bed
but an alarm went off. I had gone too far.
What did my hands ask as they stroked
that desk—a fever memory down the spine?
Melodies? Notions of romance I no longer
believe? Maybe just a new way to grieve.
