It’s out of fashion.

So I hear.

A ceiling with pits and crags like a stoney beach

where you have to wear your old sneakers

to go down in the water.

“Passe’, “

they say.

Most new buyers willing to pay

the extra thousands for a scrape and paint job

to remove the stale pop corn.

Well, I can’t!

For in all that sharp, gravelly acne

on the ceiling above my bed,

right in the middle of a small, smooth circle

is Her face,

like a profile emerging in the leaves

of Autumn maple trees.

Hair, tight to Her head, like a Roaring 20’s flapper.

A shadow of rouge on Her cheeks,

Her mouth, a circle of surprise,

Her deep set eyes

watching me and my lover,

(no matter what we’re doing!).

There She is!

Looking down on us like That is what She’s sent there to do!

Is she tattle-taleing to the Big-Ear

a few million light years up in the sky,

giving a full account of my prayers,

my thoughts,

my fantasies?

All that erotica coming in response

to my ladies waist, hip and thigh?

And our laughter?

Our lover to lover banter?

Or is She the Big Ear Herself,

simply taking notes, doing research

for her next Great Experiment?

Now.

How could I,

for the sake of some minuscular, architectural, fluxsuation

scrape and paint Her away,

given Her possible proclivities?

Sure, Sure,

I know.

You think I animate the inanimate

just to have divinity in my world!

So what!

I wait for that last, deep sleep evening

when, at last!,

She smiles down at me

and whispers my name

and I greet Her like an old friend,

(God, if you must have Him)

with a,

well,

with a smile.

My lover poking me in my ribs, asking,

“What are you smiling at?”

And I cry out, with my last breath,

“Oh! Well! Can’t you see Her?”

She’s right There!”