Congratulation

The compliment contained a poisonous
burr that she pulled out and studied
to see the blood congeal upon tiny spikes.

So wonderful this is, it said,
simply clever beauty,
and from the heart it is clear.
With your face we can
launch a thousand bank accounts.
Let us be honest,
this is so much better
than your other, recent stuff.

There, she heard it;
Her recent stuff,
of legends,
of pain,
of transcendental suffering blackly upon
an unyielding lake,
had achieved mediocrity in the extremities of a word
that does not allow it.

Observe.

Would you understand if I said,
you looked wonderful today,
That I meant
you never looked wonderful before?
That before this day,
went a thousand days of ugliness,
when your head and body should have been
disjointed from public view?

Or would you grasp that
my eyes have freshened,
and see you again,
the way I see you every day?

A perfect movement of poetry and
the only thing in colour
in my insipid world.