"Not a word of my surrounding, not a half-whispered
go to catch the rattled ought of a third concurrent universe
unlatched the more you wait, chalk drawn thick
of old around the marred bodies left by the citizen squads
our authorities facilitate, failed to prosecute, guilt
being therefore-- quote, unquote.
When physical comfort, when bodily prowess
and sovereign shape are rendered command
over the meaning of a nimbus once in sprigs
of goldenrod or Indian paintbrush,
chalice, owing to crystal rock and feather work, ivory carved
in supple limbs, remote gazes and crusty wounds,
gold-leaf reredos in bellows pyramidal from an organ pipe.
An opulence wrought from the nightmare
of Native ablation of Christian zeal waged
on local hands and effigies.
Saint James the Greater made in Goa and the Philippines
or Rose of Lima, in a ministry of Indians and slaves
fallen victim to epidemic heroically to God.
And in penitential practice, so extravagant--
cat claws and fish bones across her wasted flesh--
as to be the subject of ecclesiastical inquiry
into questions of faith, soundness of mind
stretched the length and breadth of his midrib and torso
and taut spasms.
Teeth clenched and lips in a slather
of animal darkness and time spent
under thickets, our twin intelligence of forearm
and grip in fast strokes around gleam and edge,
tips wet with each other, then deeper,
to a clump of hair and fingers guiding the back of his head,
mouth over gloss and curvature, blade indistinguishable
when too-slow a swell to release in sounds
of who, whose ah spread soaked along back
and thighs rub sleek across the wonder imperfections of form.
Lips abruptly pursed to each moan pillowed
by the sudden hush of skin a spirograph,
his dark upper eyelids and lashes down his own limbs now
in aftermath-order and lucible enormity."