'THIS ROOM HAS MYSTERY LIKE A TRANCE'

This room has mystery like a trance
Of wine ; forget-me-nots of you
Are chair and couch, the books your
Fingers touched. And now that you

Are absent here the silence scrapes
A secret rust from everything;
While sudden wreaths of sorrow's
Dust uncover emptiness like halls
To stumble through, and terror falls

The Love Poems of Kenneth Patchen