Saint Teresa

Before you, girl, the primrose world
is blotted with inky swirls.
You have half a face:

an eye, sootily fringed, raised in
ecstasy; a mouth, blurred
with damp longing. Oh,

the pale-gold contour of delicate
cheek and chin! Behind you,
a feathery sprinkling

of fog is fouling your otherworld,
a world the color of flesh-
pink underwear, where

a shoulder, a limp wrist, fingers
sporting a cigarette are
simplified—become

ambiguous geometry, a vague streetscape
where your eye was once the
pale smudge of a sun.

But, remember, beyond the soiled satin
is a white space, where
your animality was

no more than the gesture of tugging
on a pair of gray woolen
ankle-socks. Alas,

from under your mascara'd lashes,
you seek a saffron holiness
in the sky that arcs

like a huge black comb, its teeth
a rake of rain-stripes.
Intercede for us,

Saint Teresa-of-the-Billboard, tickled
by memories of childhood's
cozy feet. Pray for

us, who with up-turning eyes tremble
like you, awaiting the Light-
That-Will-Not-Fail.

The Hypnotist

Yes, it is easier now. There are scars
to show, but like a treasure
now—or like the fake severed thumb in the matchbox.

And he won't ask what his healing cost.
The sutures—he suspects—
were cheap, unguaranteed. But nothing comes for free.

So, he's the Healer now. The curtains
rumble apart and there he stands—
arms folded in the footlights—like mildewed pharaoh.

Cue for the girl. Invisible pulleys
bring on the wheeled platform
she is rooted to. They face in profile. His hands

zap out to the bulb of her shaved head,
and from his eyes to hers
stutters the customary dotted line. Her mouthless face

asks: "The magic words?" Maybe some crap
about the zodiac. The blue lights
crackle from his fingertips, but the stone won't nod. |

"I am paid by the hour to mystify. Results
don't count. Bless you, my child.
Have mother rub this ointment on the stumps. In time

they'll sprout." It all takes time. "Have faith."
She is all eyes. Inside her sheath
she wets herself. Wires haul her off. The curtain claps.

"There's nothing in my contract about words.
The hands, the eyes, okay. Next time
it's ointment and no words." "The kiss!" her shut head cries.

The Deliverer

The purple blinds are down,
and the walls I whitewashed are most lamentably
stained. The man in the dark suit

takes a step towards me,
one toecap on the Persian carpet, in his lapel
a yellowed rosebud. He has come

with news. My room is hung
with meat: yellow tallow in the hatcheted groins,
the sawn spines purpled. He wears

black gloves, supple, old.
I recognize their smell for they are like my own.
I have worn his impeccable shoes.

I want to share with him
the legend of the bone-castle on the sea's edge,
where the shingle is bleached, dry

and ancient; I want him
to know my maidens, the ivory curve of their bodies,
their silver tongues; I want to

prove to him I have lived
elsewhere. But his black shoe squeaks on my carpet.
His gloved hand reaches. The news

is in his teeth. "The war—"
I think he is saying when, above his mouth, his head
splashes apart "—the war is over."

Equinoctial

Beyond the four a.m. reflections—
Post Office, Law Courts, City Hall,
beaux-arts porticos beige and blurry
with frost-burned moss—your eyes ache down

into the sluggish eddy of your coffee;
while your fancy woman swings her shoe—
spike-heeled, slim-strapped, pale magenta—
against the bar-stool's chrome, adjusts

her haunches, touches up her mouth;
while the blind boy with the slop-cloth
douses his cigarette, peeling off
her zippered peau-de-soie, remarks,

"This ain't no home," and sotto voce,
"This here's the desert," leads her out
among the suddenly sunlit boulders
and quiring insects, deftly put

between her palms, against her belly,
as one might put a new-born child,
a horse's yellow skull; the lady,
thanking him, vows to keep the peace

and keep the faith; and then—although
her gratitude is not for you
and though her voice seems oddly foreign—
then—as the pigeons blink and shuffle,

dribbling their voices down their fronts -
then—as she levitates to heaven,
leaving us all, at last, alone—
then are you comforted, somewhat.