Poetry – Issue 4 | April 2009
Two poems by Jacqueline Dee Parker
Love Poem About A Ceiling
In that hot wrought-iron bed in Budapest
each night, afterwards, the labor
of sculptors and casters and finishers
kept us awake, marveling the ceiling
crafted with gypsum and lime, sprays of acanthus
sixteen feet above our damp hips and
open hands, lilies out of reach, and dentils,
finials, intricate coffers and cornices,
medallions adorned with delicate scrolls—
all cast and lugged to this address to be
assembled here by those laborers dusted
white with plaster, gummy with hide glue,
mounting scaffolds in the starry blue-black night,
as our eyes began to close,
fastening the lid on love’s asylum.
About the author
Jacqueline Dee Parker is a painter and a poet whose flights of fit and fancy have inspired memorable passage to and around many parts of Western and Eastern Europe and Brazil. Her poems appear in many literary journals and anthologies, including Chelsea, Connecticut River Review, Eclipse: A Literary Arts Journal and The Southern Review, among others. Born in New York City and raised in the Northeast, Parker now lives and works in the Deep South where she works as an Instructor of Art at Louisiana State University. Visit her website.
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Previously in Poetry: Romances
