When my right hand—
When the hand that had been mine—
When I found that hand
curling inward stayed
curled

protestations meant nothing; prayers.
Thinking, not thinking—
nothing.

Telipinu went, and he brought away the good. He brought away the plenty, the grain, and the wood.

When the Moon fell, he fell from heaven, and no one saw him fall.

I felt my sin shift itself beneath the skin.

The thump of the newspaper on the porch
on Christmas Day, in the dark before dawn
yet after Santa Claus has left his gifts:

My grandmother used it, Dutch Cleanser, 
in the dark Shillington halls, 
in the kitchen darkened by the grape arbor, 

Be ever after merry,
My dear Miss Terriberry:
Enjoy a very very

That women in their marble glory still
had pubic hair so startled Ruskin he
turned impotent, and had to be divorced.

Motion, motion.
Within the body cells
each nucleus rotates widdershins

Although stone nudes are everywhere—some crammed
two to a column, supple caryatids,
and others mooning in the Tuileries—