Glass Bachelor

Fanned out like a deck of cards,
A spiral staircase made of glass shards.
The neighbor's blender bores through the wall.
Bachelor balances on his crutches
at the bottom of the stairs
Waiting for the bride to descend.

They say it’s supposed to snow tonight, I said.
That’s okay, she said, placing her hand on my arm.
I want you to stay. I’ll drive you to work
in the morning. The weathermen
are never right anyways.

I'm stiffening into metal 
one limb at a time.
The moon is a white hot forge. Melt and pour
into a sieve. She rolls over in bed.
There's fire down below. She needs
so much more. I stare up 
the carpeted stairs, waiting for her 
to spread her legs, to open the door.

A sheet thrown over a glass of milk.
The  moon is a urinal cake. The river overflows.
A crown, a bottle rack.
She pedals her exercise bike. 
Fan left whirring night after night. She claims
she can't sleep without it. 
Spokes spinning atop a rickety stool.
 
A tumbling smile.
I slide down the banister. Nuzzle
her Mona Lisa fuzz. Smoke rises from
smoldering coals.
The origin of the world
squeezed through twin peepholes.
A waterfall, a lantern, a fountain
The undulating hills,
My face buried in the snow

The aquarium froze and cracked. Fish turned
into shimmering gems. Bubbles hovering in place,
globes filled with her breath.
The frost-covered nest.
She curses when she comes.
A chessboard of lust. The queen's climax,
an overturned pawn. A melted shovel,
a statue of Duchamp sliced into facets.
Pillows and porcelain. Mortar and pestle.
Muse laid to rest in a snow globe cemetery.

The moon is a hole in the ice 
photographed from below. The engine belches smoke,
lurches to life, spits out copies of us. 
Ceramic plates strapped to our feet. 
Disks become shards
become spheres when they spin
The bachelors surround her. 
I'm no longer one of them. I'm turning to rust.

It snowed overnight
just like the weathermen had predicted.
She refused to get out of bed.
I checked the bus schedule,
strapped on my suit of gray glass armor
that reflected the gray glass sky
then shouldered my crutches 
and tramped down the stairs one last time 
to set out slowly across the fields of ice.