Kaleidoscope by June Stepansky - HTML preview

 DICHOTOMY

Sumptuous

pink and orange satin

sheathe round my whiteness

in heavy-scented folds crushing me.

Breathless, I raise to one elbow,

and through a blurred crack

look at mountains of gray concrete

making an arc over my head

closing off the sky.

The perfume deepens.

I fall back on caressing pillows, faint,

and into my receding consciousness

one slim, white birch

with scattered russet leaves

cuts through the concrete

and stands strong

against a small, sweet

blueness.