It was like this:
two white arms, pudgy and compact, bursting
out of lacy pink puffed chiffon sleeves.
legs crossed at the ankles, pigeon-toed.
I would like to say here something like, widget or gizmo or cheez whiz
But I am too old now.
Shit, I say, little girls really do wear pink bows in their hair.
They wear pink plastic beaded necklaces with jumping goat pendants
at their pulsating center, bounding landscapes of musky peach blossom,
drowsy feathered eyelashes batting with foreshadowing indifference, idiocy.
My nipples, I swear, by the fluted bird song that rings nightly before dusk
(that warbling incandescent dulcimer bird of mystery!)
that they are different.
another color altogether, faintly smelling of celtic sea-salt or dry bones.
They used to smell like wet iron! Fuschia! Electric!
Now it is all flaxen, muted, foreign.
I swear by the river at night.
I can smell them.
Maybe they are out there,
by the waterfall suddenly swollen,
maybe they are out there
pressed up against a pair of cold knees
humming to a copse of stone and poplar
awaiting nothing - imaginary, safe, untouchable
carelessly listening to the coyotes love song.
Cold rubies, a word to you:
No hand is there
No devil but the devil in you
Be not awake to the tiny hearts hung there
Cherried, sparked, igniting reveries in future mouths.
