Turned trillions of times
over and over in a meager mind,
stunted by nondescript fossils
that calcify, atrophy,
and made irrelevant
by one, grandiose,
sweep of her arm.

Harsh, cruel contrasts
of her chiaroscuro diorama,
corralling, reigning in
our ordered, sordid
attempts at fastening the fetters
that kept me bound to her.

Gibson Girl hair,
coming undone
to unloose its uses
in her Art Nouveau netting
of flowing locks, luring,
entwining, encasing, enveloping.

As her white robe flows,
manipulatrix of her mise en scene,
I provide the slides
of her byzantine background,
shifting shades to shore
together my tethers.

Marking torpid time
with delusional demarcations,
I incorrectly relish
the wrong remnants
that passed prophetically
of what we once were.