My dear,
you are not Venus –
your gilded oyster shell
is a five-by-three foot walk-in tub,
with its encircled evidence
of rose-pink glycerin soap,
and your hair cannot
cover, drape
the delicate pearl
between your thighs.
That man outside
your lofty
motel window pane
will not entreat you
to a lust-scented
expiration
of West Wind.
He’s carrying
a brown paper bag,
and praying to a street light
on his knees.
Accordion arms release the insatiable birdies, rope braid carriages in May daybreak –
may day break the lap dance funerals for uncles, for widowers and winters
of the violin bonfires and gutted strings, singing dirges of doves and droughts
and children bygone and begotten to ill –
the pocks, the gas, sacred chimney promises
and scattered troops of bleating goats
who lead to the Kaiser-kept palace of nacht.