AUTUMNAL SONG

Rejoice with the wife
of thy youth.

Proverbs 5-4.

The third quarter moon
Pulls us mad revelling Jacks
Breath quick through frost-autum fields-
Bellies star heavy
Rovings backyard pastures barefoot
Through Pomona's trees,
We fall (apples in cold dew)
Breathless as Lilith's last pass
Proves empty-

Oracles sing.

Our blood trills
For the hung pumpkin-
A night jar chills our phosporescent thighs,
Cicadas on their run up-tree
Rub fiddle wings.

We hadn't touched before tonight,
Nor felt our bodies
Belly soft
Down,
Now sought by Lamia
We lay humming
Duet scored for harmonic precision,
While tongues together
Feel the flannel gut of Gypsy strings
Flame through love's orchard
Slicing fruit swiftly
For steal...

.....

II

Then warm legs beneath your dress
Roll over me,
Up my light hand feels
Field stubble-
Sounds of violin crickets,
Locusts.

Stars ascend larger
(Around us are the stars)
Hunching softly on cut hay
Our naked bodies tickle
Carbonated fire
Like too much Menuhin or glue-
Spinning forward blue specters-

Fiddle faster in the trees,

Till witch passes and youth fades
Sip dew through throats
Dry eating apples--
Mutter gown-up epiphanies
In hot beaths
And drunk
Thank the fiddlers
For the cart home.


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