Wendy Taylor Carlisle
	To Paris, Love Oenone  It's just an apple, you said, and lobbed it.  That was after you left our son, and me and claimed it was your mother's blunder, her cold shoulder, caused the fuss over that Gold Delicious.  "For the Fairest," you said when you chose a goddess. Of course, from three lame bribes, you favored lust.  How fast you fell  and then how little time went past before you blamed  the gods, the fates, the moon.  Worse than your war is me here on this mountain with its famous wind, imagining a claret sea, your fingers run amok  in her gold hair.  Promised the loveliest, you got what you got for being a hound. I pulled my hand back, never touched your wound. Princes of Wine, the Slaves of Water Ruling the room, his foot on the bar rail, my elbow in the spilled beer, we wait for closing time. We can't say no to driving 105, to looking straight into a blind man's eyes. He has the habit of more-- two cans of black beans, two boxes of Trojans, two bottles of Côtes du Rhone. For me it's the extra man I can never resist his Oh, Oh, Oh. Fugitive princes, we wait for coronation, for the final sigh, for last best, the big one. All night we wait the bartender out. (title: after Caesar Vallejo)