I know Eleanor of Aquitaine

had troubles—domestic

and global entanglements:

two husbands – the first

deplorable, the second she adored

but who loved war more.

I think of Eleanor now

gauzy curtains making

what’s beyond implausible

as across the alley

balcony ghosts expose

purple in a paperbark maple eidolon.

Stay in the spooky

I tell myself already

overcast and overdrawn

in the city’s torn

potholes and politics.

medieval jousts as quaint

even charming compared to

a drone’s pinpoint target

Who can absorb it all—

I pull the curtains in my quiet

kitchen and listen to the

woeful bubbling

of a soft boiled egg.