Just the Black Velvet Slippers

Embroidered with tigers!
Lined satin-red
and the man
in the photograph
wears them
with ease—
I want a paintbrush
in hand
and his same
sun-squint
and spilt drinks
and short nights
spent on deck—
that hair,
those hands,
those sea-spangled,
horn-rimmed spectacles
he wears honestly,
to better see.

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