Sonja Besford
Photograph of a Captured Demon
i was open vulnerable and just ready to convert her
when a strange sound and bursting light distracted me
so that ever since i have been stuck in an album on a
photograph showing the face of a nun in a virtuous prayer
and behind her my shadow in a spasm of lust for her
virginal moans and the scent from her damp thighs;
my captured form now weeps when it remembers
millenniums of classic conquests, i, trophy-hunter of the
chastities of nuns monks maidens grammar school kids
who eagerly accepted my offer of lasting bondage
to the stirrings of their dangerous libidos;
now flattened nostalgic and vexed i ravish only in my
paling memories and only when the volume is opened
during the episodic visitations by acid-taking
glue-sniffing teenagers in the basement of a hospital
where a single boiler bulb lights a photograph and
duplicates the images of body parts from old x-rays
scattered on the concrete floor and from there
i see her as well old and dying in a ward upstairs
still believing that she was photographed with
the shadow of an angel behind her
Sonja Besford was born in Belgrade. In Serbian she has published two books of poetry, two collections of short stories and a novel. In English she is the author of two plays, several short stories, poems and many reviews of contemporary literature. These poems are from the collection Arrivals and Departures due to be published in November 2001. She is married and lives in London.
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