[Betty Page in Bondage]
 

Flesh
            a momentary flicker.
Mother all arms, hip
dropped like a bowl

over-brimming.

The infant still believes
cold is temporary,
                                      light
only a gap in a red-black
curtain.

Machines having passed,
gathering up is done
two wrists at a time.

The waves wave furiously now,
knocking stars
out of night’s hand.

[A big cat laps itself
on the savannah. Teeth
are a quiet vowel, quite.
Black scraps peel off
to alight.]       

                                The line
of soot on the ceiling
of the Chauvet Cave
denotes the limit
of the draughtsman’s belief.

[Of course, light
loves a hollow.]

                                Here
is only a rumor disrobing
such held and then
                  a disheveled,
but enough.

Child is a metronome
adding up to a small
though
growing sum.