Peter Porter
Studies of a Girl
This is the heart of the mystery,
how to live with one’s own body,
a territory as ductile as
the plains of the Arno, swift as
circuits of the Adige, how to say
My Mother bids me bind my hair
and tread on earth with the sweet
misura of a perfect instep,
the arch of triumphal love.
It is only proper to be frightened
of a perfection which does not
know itself. Nakedness is the moon,
a desolate orb which burns the mind:
we can never find it, it sleeps
beneath the sexual fashions
a snake in the garden. Until death,
no one may break the dance;
changing partners is called love.
The things that Pisanello knew
are proved in daughters across
crowded rooms — the oracle hangs
in darkness. They are sisters
of the quail and dragon-slayers
in broad sun hats. Calves of the leg
and buttocks are like panniers —
we shall be nourished just
by looking, by imposing love.
Waves rising and falling, Cupido
pursuing the gliding girl
in sandals of the sun. With
everything catalogued by
feeling, the world is forced
to find some freshness. Her lips
are open and the moon peers out,
a module of ecstasy dragging
on her body, the right reprise of love.
Page(s) 11
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