Enter Lothario, Aged Adulterer
Love is his religion. The laying of hands,
lingeringly, onto hers, or hers, or hers.
Half-lidded, his lizard eyes blink
like matches, teasing out partners, with pressures
chanced on the breast and flank at the theatricals
or in the Oxfam pantry or browsing through parlours
rich with abandoned wives. The thrill
of the chase, and the always-novel improvised
rutting. Whispers and lies are his charmed
language. The strange child and its distanced
mother will leave him someday. Silence.
Scared of what he worships, of any self
that could last, need, answer, he faces
this one, flushed. Her pupils widen, patterned
with tiny moons. He hides in his communion.
The organ tries ‘And my redeemer lives’.
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