ly tender considerations
of a plain and poetic
uxory but with
the refinements of
a raging
and carnivorous regard.
In
lust she was all
stone surfaces, flanks
of a temple guardian of Nimrud
with a horse's rump
and the great
stone beard of a sage; her
kisses broke my teeth,
blood flowed on
my face and on my neck,
down the muscles of my
supplicating arms; my
broken fingers stroked
the relieved, the reit-
erant
profiles of sphinxes and beaked
gods that scarred
her wonderful wide flesh.
But don't
mistake me, she was
a Christian, all right,
even if it showed
how her forebears paid the rent
(I've seen
her softball trophies so I know);
and she was full of charity
and white as Pepsodent :
It
was not her fault
