we are Layla –
two nights
backlit from within
dancing with castanets of faerie claret
and moon-cakes,
partnered with blood-wise bats,
shape-sharing crowns,
throats, lamps-in-waiting,
Egypt, too, (among missteps –
wild Salukis, red sea hounds,
wilderness bloodhounds,
skillful leapers all
over where our breath palettes the wind
rumpling with drums,
trumpets triangles painting in lit dusts
rebels, prayers, and, as template,
canon draped with drunken sailor
we and all embarking the streets (Paris-like, say,
harbors of salvation – ) joined by gypsies, prostitutes
the Uruk lion, door of Ninus, Barab-
bas, Aladdin’s rub all dancing dancing all
on accursed ground in a circle-’round-and-round
until, in churchyard’s way,
twilight meets itself again

let the bells toll
toll in a freeze-frame of star-smear
shivering, tra-la, in copy-cat measures
that of madness and fear

Oh, we are happy now

one day
if our scent of blackest laughter
comes before the smell of Nineveh