-like eve sometimes- 

1.

I looked to Durer.  

The copper platform yields its cold disposition. Fruit, 

once ribbed to the stem, once ribbed from Adam,   

twice pissed away.

That’s what’s left of her heart.

That was no snake.

She could have passed it through a bowel.

She could have loved me, too.

But she let herself go 

the same way temptation turned

Eve’s ear to its tongue. 

(vegetation pales at her skin.

a sweet

juice clings to the ends of her mouth.)

2.

That's the woof of the warp.

It weaves like that crazy little lizard

sweeping the sandbank on its weather-side.

But that’s still straight.

This dust is sand-smoke,

the tide of its water.

She could have spun me to the symbolism of her calling.

She could have taken the time to love me.

I'm as pliable as hell at the face of such beauty.

3.

I looked to Balthus—

the management of such imagery.

Earth-toned, nearly primitive pearl 

as true to its plane as any contrition illuminated 

through a needle's point. 

Such is the perfect utility of space.

I can’t get away with anything.

She thought I said that she should love me.

Except for the poems,

I didn’t have a clue.




                         Fall River