The White Album

I knew Pierre. We drank coffee at cafes near the river
Saturday mornings.
I watched his eyes.
They were the kind
of eyes that made hats
with flowers, and hands
so gentle they could
make you dream.
There was so much light
in his eyes
I couldn’t stand it.
Pierre pulled white
roses from the world,
painted them with
music made
of lemons and snow.
Yet there was nothing in them, his eyes. Nothing at all.
The empty white vase that longs
for peonies
longs forever.
The tip of his brush
so fierce with love
imagined
a new world,
and the world
loved him back.
He knew it was
all in his head,
but light came
out anyway
from the
backs of his
eyes, which emptied the world of everything it had.