Funny Loss of Face by Brian Blanchfield

Funny Loss of Face 

Late in the last of the sun all over the wall

across the lot the bordello larks on the ivy vine

visit one another’s resting closets

like boys and men in Taiwanese baths:

anyone could be behind that leaf or must he

prefer sleep to sharing sleep, the overcome one,

flustering, not just anyone, retorts

and have him know, special again only once

the turnkey checks, before the wind top to bottom

as in a movie of itself plays the shuddering

singularity of love, selecting no one

particularly anyway, but all in las peliculas

sit deeper in their popcorn parkas down.

Everyone’s in for the night except

you who had flown all day didn’t want to fall asleep

here I was telling your neck relax your eyes

were going to wake up raw without solution

for lenses, so it was better you find

the little baths they had at home. Why it was

funny I suggested we concoct it from scratch’s hard

to say and whether one of us or which was

good about everything. When you call and

the leaves are brighter red, it’s later, nearer

the sun, and relief is that vibrant.

That you can see already where more doors

were and birds the ropey circuitry

the wall will bare is an occupancy of mine.