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Aaron Jones

A Friend Deferred

I owned a painting once, of oil and wax,
enshrined above the hearth in golden leaves,
the highest prized of all my artifacts,
fairer than plated jade or silken sleeves
and dearer far than that which sighs and heaves
in pity on my floor.

Its quality was at the front and fore
of any scene or image ever rendered.
Like she who, by the angels, was Lenore,
the oils wrought a maiden warm and tender—
a blue-eyed, gold-haired girl of godly splendor
poised in everpeace.

And she was wreathed in robes of softest fleece,
this girl of lapis eye and golden lock—
no, it was red, red as the very East
which rises on the dew-and-salt-sprayed dock
and runs like blood over the wind-whipped rocks—
I might have stared for years.

Then blossomed the most final of my fears—
no, tawny-haired, and eyes as green as pines—
the colors ran like tan and ochre tears,
and at the silent melting of the lines,
I saw my striking angel's taut design
reduced into idea.

The gold leaves peeled and cracked, my eyes came down
upon the five and twenty years I'd slept.
I whirled, but alas—her eyes were brown!—
the sighing thing had from my chamber crept,
far-fated for a hearth of something more
than jade or sleeves of silk. I gave, and wept
in pity on the floor.

-X2A