Poetry- Vancouver Public Library Opening Gala in 1995 by Evelyn Lau Lyrics
I live in the house where I did not say
I love you, Every night I repeat it
as prayer, penance, incantation. I sit
in the black armchair to taste the memory of you.
The green couch. The burnet-orange floor. This wall
where the streetlight shines at 11 p.m….
Parties remind me of you. Tonight a man
said your name, and the room swam with grief.
The speaker smelled of Pierre Cardin. I learned
into the staple of his elbow, to feel the flesh
and bone of the person who knew you, who once
shook your hand, shook your wife’s hand.
Around us men and women tumbled
like chips at the bottom of a kaleidoscope.
Gowns like fish scales, tuxes like funerals.
Again, I whisper, say it again. Love….
but nothing more happens, though there are
performers on stilts, Shakespeare actors in velvet,
red volka, quail pierced by bone, though
we slide swizzle sticks into our purses for souvenirs,
laugh subversively. Though a man I once saw on his knees,
weeping, his back candy-cane striped,
his face a pomegranate of lust,
his penis a nub, a slug, a tuberous potato
is here tonight, splendid in his suit.
Chin cocked, glass raised, wife stalwart by his side.
Say it again, I yell, but the diva
opens her throat, and no one hears.
I love you, Every night I repeat it
as prayer, penance, incantation. I sit
in the black armchair to taste the memory of you.
The green couch. The burnet-orange floor. This wall
where the streetlight shines at 11 p.m….
Parties remind me of you. Tonight a man
said your name, and the room swam with grief.
The speaker smelled of Pierre Cardin. I learned
into the staple of his elbow, to feel the flesh
and bone of the person who knew you, who once
shook your hand, shook your wife’s hand.
Around us men and women tumbled
like chips at the bottom of a kaleidoscope.
Gowns like fish scales, tuxes like funerals.
Again, I whisper, say it again. Love….
but nothing more happens, though there are
performers on stilts, Shakespeare actors in velvet,
red volka, quail pierced by bone, though
we slide swizzle sticks into our purses for souvenirs,
laugh subversively. Though a man I once saw on his knees,
weeping, his back candy-cane striped,
his face a pomegranate of lust,
his penis a nub, a slug, a tuberous potato
is here tonight, splendid in his suit.
Chin cocked, glass raised, wife stalwart by his side.
Say it again, I yell, but the diva
opens her throat, and no one hears.