A sonnet written upon looking at the illustration of a skull in a medical dictionary.
Concealed by muscle, powder, bone and hair
In duplex from the corners of her eyes
The twin lobes of her shapely sphenoid flare
Like wing-tips of a bird of paradise.
The cranium, bound with words: a veil of skin
Obscures its features, like a lady’s fan
Stretched on a frame that—blue, translucent, thin—
Is moist and flaky, like a sticky flan.
Suffused and dripping with the sauce of blood
That irrigates the temple of the flesh
It will endure until the purple flood
Subsides, the sutures of the bone unmesh
And the bare urn lies vanquished—jumbled sherds
Abandoned by the weak cement of words.
1982-1986?
No comments:
Post a Comment