Apollo e Dafne by Bernini

for Wally & Vicki

It's those brightly painted toenails that

Remind me of tiny B Altman Christmas windows.

And hair with its lingering streaks of elderly men.

And ruby r Shrimp lips.

And erotic epigrams after dinner.

But this is not a metrical composition

Wondering freely in la Galleria Borghese supermarket.

Or the dial tone after a dangerous affair.

Or the hiss of silence after coming.

(I can take wing after that.)

I delight in the thought of squirrels pretending

Everything is knowledge and delight in

These odds and extremitys have an inclination to propel us,

As enlarged pleasures do.

Like passion, they have their have history,

And hunt by dint of sensing body heat.

Here, meaning is breath and destiny.

This is like a strange occupation,

Being a marble statue, searching for life

In the strabismal milky gaze of the onlooker

Imagine by what means glorious life would be if we wished

And became beds in anyone's life,

In any period in history?

Another novel invention is nakedness and human touch.

Copyright World rhyme Incorporated Jul/Aug 2000

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