Not an easy villain,
tender-soled, unkissable.
Mocking from her suffocating chamber,
oblivious to the flagellant power
of words.
Beggars tapping tin on tin,
hawk-nosed Phoenicians,
apoplectic hemorrhoidal scholars,
alms-givers on probation.
Gods grow beady-eyed
when the recluse fondles Lucy.
-I’m addressing you, child.
Come when I call.
Andromeda at her post
froths with beaten dignity,
sardonyx eyelid leaping like a tick.
Considering Lucy’s saintly welfare
the proconsul walks up and down
the Admiralty’s corridors,
blanched tiles greasy with
aquarian light.
A turtle at its watering-hole
looms in opal elegance
and is as quickly dismissed.
The proconsul curses,
hammering refined fists
like a Vestal with a codpiece.
Lucy makes shrimp-sounds and
screws up her eyes with concentration,
the sign of the cross on the steamed glass.
Deft, maddening finger
busy with preservation.
Leather merchants clutch their bills,
too polite to haggle with
the harassed, committed guards,
bronze and scarlet, replete with
insects, insignia, and handbooks.
The Fuhrer’s delegation
gropes the received signal,
impending doom gathering
in Empire’s sphincter.
All cocktail hours cancelled,
the embassies registering
grave sympathy with the dilemma
of their hosts, hoist on
their own petard, saintly prickings
of an indigestible girl.
Boisterous phenomena,
chastity like a loud
downpour, rain exploding
amid imported water lilies.
But the cue, so sweet,
so calmative, mama’s knitting
for frivolous Lucy,
guardian of meringue and sunlight.
The dagger and the half-slip,
mantilla and pincers,
Lucy shames down the proconsul,
bruiser ablub
with tough-guy apologies.
-Hold it right there, Missy.
Gondolas rock with foreplay,
eyes smile in the mute
equivocal doorways.
Grandma stumbles, drunk again.
Tomcats litter the dining room
floor. Mgnkao!
the wet, blind motto.
Gravediggers, amateur assassins,
professional apostates, worthy confederates
hang on Lucy’s last words.
Smiling, she keeps them
to herself.