My Theory Of Chance

There was a red dress, silk fireball, cardinal flight,
that stretched and grew at whim--a shove of wind,
sudden pirouette, bounce of hips...
with a slight gold trim to sink some greed in.
Legend first born in the mute-calved brain,
which cannot talk but in shadows pantomimed,
so I only sensed it gone from our most lyric bars
and the epic land beween curb and cab,
until it autumn leafed into a 10th floor flat
and I followed it to a far corner of the room
across a party sound of crumbling crackers,
people dressed aloud in thin fiction, big purpose,
as if there were no earthquakes
and love had no battle cry.

“I think you wore that red dress to meet me.”

“Oh, and what makes you say that?”

“Because here I am.”