Every grunt
is conspiracy.
Faint colors
register their fragrance,
move unhindered
through the chamber,
caryatids of light
flanking a glass-topped coffee table.
-God damn you!
Tyrant king
performs with pinstriped
understatement,
his pyre administered through memory:
his hands caress a corpse’s white limbs,
spoor of kindness
the trace of the hind,
the hunter’s sensual clue.
Outside the white Ministry
a faceless, tongueless people.
He fogs the glass
with a bouquet of breath.
He has schooled himself
in Authority’s naked gestures,
in the fragmented apostrophes
to an abstract policy:
a smiling dairymaid
milking liberty with strong fingers.