A Whole Army to Feed
Inside my throat, sounding
an octagonal room, a mare’s hooves
strumming fleshy cords, tunnel turning
to tower, now a nun galloping up the bell rope
un-arrowed, light as a breeze, war-blown
battered church my parents desired
as marriage altar. Many mornings I slipped
2
up its bell tower, nuns in tow,
inside a whiteness perceived as ironed dress.
Etna to the left, green sea in front,
rope burning my hand. Volcanic lands.
What can you hear all at once? Recorded
bells, rain, midnight vespers, hush slush
of travellers leveling newspapers under sleeves
3
rose scented bed sheets, more than
music a sound wave, an arrow island
where all metered noise is outlawed.
Your lips a perfect fullness. Sight of another
woman rough and rude. Your Grecian nose
before a Turner painting at the Tate.
You wished me marveling powers on Friday
4
by Tuesday I felt capture nearing.
Venus, having fixed darts in her heart,
hooks the freer lover into adventure.
Can you hear me better if I whisper?
If closer, a kiss near bombed-out temple white?
Opera for a room plays daily marine
syntax of birdsong, lulling cast-away lovers
5
into recognizing how blown instruments
provide a softer tune than brass. Reeds
harnessing the power of the star system,
where notation plucks a stranger form.
You tell me to listen for color.
“And the palette—blue, black, and white—
and the materials—lots of stone and rock.
6
Hard and stuck, perhaps, or immoveable.”
Savage rock-face, you don’t bother
with the waltz, as you haven’t the arms
to deface my monstrous appetite.
Forgetting you completely, I trace
another fragrant cavity, Torches. Gemini-Helen,
iconic if not cyclonic. Lamps lit as fiery
7
torches carrying visions of bodies,
arms outstretched, a piano, when your
voice comes out to greet me, I weep
pleasure registered in smells off-
brocade, tapestry abounding in hooks
collapsed his cheek against mine own, twinned
and pinned a kiss, hand tender upper side
8
chemistry complete: beaker, glass, scale.
Speeches recorded in St. Petersburg,
drinking tea in the garden. Putting you in
my mouth, what would that mean?
Stories passed between outstretched legs,
myself a rush, soft reeds, your tallness
ushers a walk, fig trees, feather breath
9
needles dripped as tongued florescence,
song thrushes singing of sinking ships,
fixed, knit these bonds of possession firm
in well-matched French caves, our honey
-moon in Morocco, salmon-pink blossom
trains. Blossom here, 1973. Petals repeating,
2015. Both in color and in military use, navy
10
blue is my favorite color. My mother
wouldn’t approve, but that’s the whole
reason I’m compromised, see? I couldn’t
make good, all bells, all at once, explosives
and dynamite my chosen power tool. Staccato
force, especially when you remember that photo
-graph of me standing on mount Etna
11
in a sundress and lace socks, steam hissing
off the jetted black rock, holding a boulder
in my hand, half the size of my head, mouth
frozen open shouting, it’s hot, it’s hot, mama,
words invisible, words as dissipated smoke
casting song spells, spin-art patterns revolved
around passions, razor-licked and yet to come,
12
why I’m afraid to fall in love with silences,
and you. Mother’s rusty restaurant signage, white
tablecloth for blackened letters, handwritten
letters—no revisions necessary I wrote to both
of the men I was seeing, I couldn’t decide
how much time I needed to spend at my desk
recreating vast sunken treasures, or salt-curing
13
tuna steaks my grandfather’s boat pulled in.
Phoenicians, a whole army to feed. Then what?
How much longer do I stay and wait,
to what end does the tandem performance serve,
strummed and fluted in fine greenery?
From the location of my heart, I ask for mercy.
Forgetful, I reinvent myself in revision,
14
in furtiveness, in passion’s hidden embraces.
When a wild beast is startled from his lair,
it’s not the one who finally catches him
entitled to love’s prize, but the woman who first
enters the cave. When a baby appears
onstage in a Greek play, we know these lines
to be added by a Roman. Sweetness coming later.