Without which the tits, anxious
rabbits, sit up on their haunches
no longer in the sun nibbling grasses,
but cower, fine fat alertnesses
pressed flat, who sense
the raptor’s presence.
And the chin, ample in
its sympathy, sinks down
laying the folded
pleats of its old
coat upon the lawn to lap the dew.
Must the cunt, too,
lament this loss?
Atrophies dwindle once-
trophied glades, whose rivulets
rinsed the helmets
of kings? What balm, after lush
spring and summer’s flush
fall dumb,
to say wisdom will come
pressing its cool cabbage leaf across my brow?
Let all perfumes perish now.
This insistence
clocks can be stopped with resistance
insults. The one relief
at certain age
is being sage
enough at last to admit when I feel bereft.
I’ve little time left
for lies
meant to anesthetize
grief.