Sotto Voce

dressed up tea-cups with the deepest sea dwellerssmoking mint and tobacco

risked romance with militaristic tensionstwisting birds into copper paeans

sketched love as rudderless and suspectpenetrating thighs with a cactus gaze

hard-scrabbled a town out of a call-girl’s outpostcompounding the swarm to witness

muttered through the tapestries of flower petalsdimpling the earth with softened heels

laced moonlight into my corsets and gartersyielding to the heave of time’s reign

guy-wired a shirt dress out of chiffonstanding up straight as a pathology