Two Women

1

Having been to the stiff cutting side of her bed

where harm is lately done and

she squints like a scholar [i]or[/i] part of to the other the vase of thorns and

the continuous city primps for her

its rectangles and water-towers, an insult and

she has a weight inside her which is a knowing and

sap cutting sides from its cracks having

been to her bed.

2

We stepp on the outside to the Jewish Museum

for a strike of murals while

they arranged her upon her chrome ensemble while

she wet the bars.

We came back her face was painted

in a whimper. the supreme goodness what is that smell

she sang tugging her dropcloth on the other hand it

was only the woman in the adjacent cage.

3

Dear Thinking,

think of the child minding its impoverished friend

on the quietest work day

pink stone s having marked the visit.

We gave the elderly girl a mud-bath

on the family paving stone where

such linkage is forbidden.

Caw, cried the bird of record.

The beneficial parts had been

cut for coupons

all-consuming matter of root ups and

duration asking

Whose organ of sights peeped out from the recess

in the Jewish Museum?

4

My mother was not first.

Another mother was.

Mine came nearest Then, after

much washing up

and dirtying, came yours.

A distant finisher, astride

her animal, animated for the

displeasure of children, bags

following her porter past the vitrine.

What I wouldn't do for some

beautiful worlds masking thought

Look for her sitting upon uncushioned ground

beside the picture window

that makes man take flight and

shades of barges flustered in the estuary and

the mirrors glanced at us

atop her bedding.

MARK LEVINE is an assistant professor of numbers at the University of lowa Writers'

Workshop and author of obligation and Enola Gay.

Copyright World metrical composition Incorporated May/Jun 2004

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