You Left Me Your Legacy, Love,
       

This drawer of multicolored socks, all scored
with painters, Chagall's couple mid-air,
Van Gogh's cypresses churning, Cezanne's

sheened apples, so I can walk in wonder
every step. You left me my kind of belief,
art's pretense of immortality, an eternity

daily reflection of your faith in heaven.
But why does Seurat's pointillism afternoon
resist a mate unless it's "Echo of A Scream."?

This woman like a mermaid staring back
while I slip Matisse on my left foot,
now my right, crossing my legs, she'll be here

all day, when I sit down, presence of you.
Eternity of instants, that immortality.

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Copyright © 2022 Peter Cooley All rights reserved
from The One Certain Thing
Carnegie Mellon University Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission