Six Month Anniversary with Vermeer
Ava C. Cipri

smoking on your studio’s deck
after sex

taking in Pittsburgh’s skyline

thinking about Vermeer’s View of Delft
composed in an attic
high up like this
panoramic view; more than topography

more than
steeped March clouds

& I’m waiting it out
finishing this cigarette
counting down our days

just before
my hand tracing
the 1800s World Map
taped to your wall

beside us
in bed

my promises sketched out
in longitudes & latitudes

how I spoke of Antarctica
our bodies lost in all that bedding’s wool

and now praying let this be where it ends
before the terrible & distrust

again, I dream of my winter death played out

those lines from Roethke:
churning in a snowdrift
until the headlights darken

the finality of it all; the quiet that I seek,
just like Harper Pitt from Angels in America
retreating closer to Antarctica with each little blue pill

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