Celibate
What is it she yearns for, peering
from the reaches of the dry shaft
where some sallow trickster
she met on the brick road plunged
her, promising she would be safe
in the shelter of the well:
the echo of her parched tongue
as she tells her moribund tale -
how she aches and festers
waiting for his pinched face
to peer in from time to time
to make sure she is still captive?
Or the simple charge
of a stranger’s hand lifting
her wantonly, a rabbit from a top hat,
the moist press of lips
and the contours of a body
grown fat on wine and love?
The spell admits no answer.
Only her abstract fears
of strummed nerves, tissue engorged,
the rank kiss of an impostor
sealed in a viscous film.
So she clings to her taut faith:
clear water trickling
somewhere below;
she will drink it
if she suffers long enough.
Meanwhile the angelus reaches her
from the village over the fields,
clanging the old mantra,
worked by lies of gravity
all manner of thing shall be well.
from the reaches of the dry shaft
where some sallow trickster
she met on the brick road plunged
her, promising she would be safe
in the shelter of the well:
the echo of her parched tongue
as she tells her moribund tale -
how she aches and festers
waiting for his pinched face
to peer in from time to time
to make sure she is still captive?
Or the simple charge
of a stranger’s hand lifting
her wantonly, a rabbit from a top hat,
the moist press of lips
and the contours of a body
grown fat on wine and love?
The spell admits no answer.
Only her abstract fears
of strummed nerves, tissue engorged,
the rank kiss of an impostor
sealed in a viscous film.
So she clings to her taut faith:
clear water trickling
somewhere below;
she will drink it
if she suffers long enough.
Meanwhile the angelus reaches her
from the village over the fields,
clanging the old mantra,
worked by lies of gravity
all manner of thing shall be well.
Page(s) 60
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