I.
In an orange dress proclaiming flame 
Pain says, Baby, this is how it’s gonna be.

She begins almost innocuously:  a paper cut,
a corn; then gall stones, daughter’s dog

beneath the wheel of the Mercury Marquis.
Suddenly, your house is burning down.  

It’s the build-up, breakdown of body that excites 
as she pricks loved ones with her lethal 

needle.  If you’re still, silent as light
Pain purses her lips and blows you a goodbye kiss;

she places a pistol in your hand and singsongs 
in your ear:  Here.  Hold this.  Feel this.


II.
No two shoulders are alike; no two trees 
have the same leaves though it's deceiving:  

infinite pattern of palms, fingertips that lift 
a spaghetti strap from the clavicle, lower 

past the shoulder where the cicatrix of a small 
pox shot identifies.  Blue skin.  Blue sky.  

Pick-up truck.  Texas on a Sunday afternoon. 
To think one shouldn't don black in summer. 

The dead still smell and collect the river's 
detritus in tangled tresses, surprised mouths.  

In front of a church, an uprising of skirts 
as choir girls congregate for a photograph.  

White sashes cinch thin waists.  Lily-of-the-valley
in their hair.  Farther down the river, willow leaves 

stick to the foreheads of two girls.  Dresses--wet 
feathers pressed to flawless backs.


III.
Through indigo windows, 
women bent over ironing 

boards, reserved 
as pearls, pressing 

dresses for a funeral.  
Still life of lemons 

moonlit in the cool 
dark kitchen.  Not yet

lit by sun or lamp.  Iris hue.
Lover, there is no getting

over beyond this,
only plum and thistle.


*First published in Pleiades