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.