He Promised Me the Moon

He Promised Me the Moon

I came here hoping
this world would suffice,
but all I met were flimsy ghosts
playing with fractals and logistics,
as meaningless as gossip –until him.

He hired me as his model,
even promised me the moon
before his wife's death.
I wasn't planning on this,
to know such human feelings.

He begged me to move in, after.
But he sits now, staring at his paintings.
He won’t even let me touch him.
Her flowers shrivel in their pots,
for want of her special love.

She was from Orlando,
a crowded, touristy place
of slender women, cocktails
at four, fashion-wise and empty-
headed as the rest of their lot.

But I don't leave him. I can't.
It makes me wince, knowing
I can assume a liquid form,
a creature foreign to this world,
from a planet of  endless storms.

Perhaps tomorrow he'll be aware,
pick up his palette, have me pose.
I don't care how painful or how long,
I only want him to undress me,
kiss me in familiar places --

I’ll find us a moon of our own,
far from Earth.