Verses

¹ at the center of which is Man,
said the woman unto him, laughing, her symphony a breath of hands.

² There were walls in those days:

³ The cotton patch on one side, impossible to mend; her father at the window,
plotting murder; her mother knitting sandwiches:

⁴ Bolls, half open, scratchy to retrieve; the failed blood of Adam,
crying out to Eve; street signs, curbs, and gutters; the restless night brigade:

⁵ All the milk in heaven
in one swollen pale breast; the whispering of leaves:

⁶ The preacher in his trundle bed; the plumber with his bottle;
the widow’s magazine:

⁷ Presbyterians; Methodists; Lutherans; Catholics; Baptists;
the Four Square; the two-square; dodge-ball; hopscotch; tops; jacks;
monkey bars; jump-ropes; braids; and of course the scaffold,

⁸ For not all spirits break.

⁹ She sighed:

¹⁰ The birth of fiction; as if yes were a word and the owl
had known; as if need were the beginning and not before;
as if he were wheat in the field of her palm,

¹¹ Trembling:

¹² Gently, she eased his body down:

¹³ She sang it down, praised it down,

¹⁴ Cloth to the loin and thorns above,

¹⁵ As if many were chosen and one were called:

¹⁶ And he cried unto her,

¹⁷ I cherish the death that I have been given,

¹⁸ And explained in a breath how it had been prophesied by trees;
how he had carried a lamb through winding streets; how men had looked up
from their work and derided him; and how they had returned
to their dwellings and hung themselves,

¹⁹ Fattened,

²⁰ On the spit of their own lives.

Recently Banned Literature, December 16, 2011

[ 49 ]