What if I said that among your crowning virtues
are the shape of your mouth pronouncing spoon,
the bend of your neck, and the suggestive arc
of your brown and furrowed forehead when
you fasten a sandal buckle? You would level
your serious eyes no doubt, and your Latin tongue
would gather its quick strength and call it drivel.
You stand at the window, where the poolside palms
flicker through old cracked blinds, half-closed,
and men are tossing pruned fronds in a truck,
grunting in beery gutturals, their sculpted
brawn sheened with sweat. Now, should I complain,
you'd say, "they're butchering the trees", or, "Christ,
that noise", and squeeze the light out with the chain.
are the shape of your mouth pronouncing spoon,
the bend of your neck, and the suggestive arc
of your brown and furrowed forehead when
you fasten a sandal buckle? You would level
your serious eyes no doubt, and your Latin tongue
would gather its quick strength and call it drivel.
You stand at the window, where the poolside palms
flicker through old cracked blinds, half-closed,
and men are tossing pruned fronds in a truck,
grunting in beery gutturals, their sculpted
brawn sheened with sweat. Now, should I complain,
you'd say, "they're butchering the trees", or, "Christ,
that noise", and squeeze the light out with the chain.
