The myth, the moon, the television screen.

The boy on the stair, the girl in her room,

Her sister by the dresser with the comb caught in her hair.

They’re white; they fly by night;

They mix their tenses,

They’ll end up on fences,

robbed and clothed by neighbor's stares through contact lenses.

It’s the thrill of the old stuff,

the chill of the bold stuff:

when John calls and says

tender is the night I flew to you,

would be Joan of Arc with her armour bright

who Leonard too screwed good one night -

coming for torch and light

finding her covered in dust

opting for the girl on her right.

But she is the boudoir poet.

Look at her small world

of words and lovers

and songs that she fell for

the first time

when she thought she was a man.

(Though the closest she could get

was to grind them each into the powder of a fan.)

Lapus Lazuli makes a loyal fool,

a doting craftsman in the royal blue.

Spin their words from their mouths,

spool the paint out of jewels

-- they built it all for you

-- they get the tools; you get the room

That’s the sentence. She’s the muse.