Your Red Dress


Somewhere above your red dress my lips found your kiss.
The tiger leapt from your heart into mine.
I grabbed the black hair of a haunted dream
that, when it rested, lay between your breasts.
Your eyes were wet as ice, warm as fingers.
You clutched my shoulders. We called it dancing
when the room jerked like a desperate embrace
tangling or untangling, as night is outside and in.
You stopped like some vagrant wind,
head back on black leather, and with one misted finger I
traced the line from the bottom of your chin
to your red dress.


Donald Zirilli
1998