For Elizabeth Bishop

Madness, my mistress, your tender abuse

embraces me from the bureau mirror.

It has a cozy familiar excuse

that wishes we were but were not like her.

This Medusa eye of mine qualifies

her mien –

black and gray

(as if shadowed moths aggregate to this form)

– and amplifies

lost beauty’s mutable weltering wroth.

Now death stares back at us with vanity

and snakes nip at our irises with Hate

(and Love)

turning to stone our sanity;

imbibing our pride with a plaintive trait.

My mistress,

madness,

we’ve mantled you,

muse:

On the bookshelf

sits your tiny statues.