Not the Three Botticelli Paintings
— for Ingo Swann
The plum dark clouds above the snowy mountain
part to reveal a bone plate
against which two large armies congregate—
tiresome conflicts of light
and more light—we watched
the weighted saucer dip
and rotate in rose and green slips
of exhaust which the sun has
burned off by early morning. So
fuck the late night radio.
I can’t remotely care for the white pear
on the dark bureau
or the woman in dungarees, head lowered,
naked from the waist,
who in the tradition of insects
is approaching the pear
with every intention
of eating it. Low, lower.
Fuck the morning radio also.
It balances against her heart. She’s
happily obsessed with contrast
and while still a child kept precious
an old postcard of a black goat
being pulled in a red cart.
The signal gaining noise in a passing schoolbus.
This woman who opens the moon silly
in the dark bamboo arches. No guests.
The juice from the pear
glistening in a byzantine pendulum of breast,
now slowing, restless.