ANNE KNISH
Opus 118
IF bathing were a virtue, not a lust,
I would be dirtiest.
To some, housecleaning is a holy rite.
For myself, houses would be empty
But for the golden motes dancing in sunbeams.
Tax-assessors frequently overlook valuables.
Today they noted my jade.
But my memory of you escaped them.
EMANUEL MORGAN
Opus 7
BEYOND her lips in the dark are a man's feet
Composed and dead . . .
In the light between her lips is a moving tongue-rip sweet,
Red.
Her arms are his white robes,
They cover a king,
His ornaments her crescent lobes
And two moons on a string.
Sheba, Sheba, Proserpina, Salome,
See, I am come!—king, god, saint!—
With the stone of a volcano O show that you know me,
Pound till the true blood pricks through the paint!
Twitch of the dead man's feet if he remembers
A bunch of grapes and a ripped-open gown.—
And the live man's eyes are night after embers,
Two black spots on a white-faced down . . .
And in the dawn, lava . . . rolling down . . .
Down-rolling lava on an up-pointing town.