1. to the fruit

Rose-soaked ovoid rising like
sun leak on peach skin:
             pyramids arranged in grocery

bins fluoresce, saying press one, test one—
it will pass its examination,
such adolescent flesh: it will pass:

but dark-ridged is the pit
                         that lies in wait within.


             2. verses on death

                         where are the beautiful
women, the splendid cities of long ago?
o Hélinand of Froidmont—

all has vanished


             3. in the observatory

Jupiter’s red eye stares us down
through the centuries: never subside,

             its lush, telescoped form
whispers to my refracted gaze, its shifty
storm invulnerable to
                                  the fermentation

of time—it does not know what

my mirror shows, the body I face
off against each day


             4. to the body dysmorphic

not my own figure in the glass, but
the crone’s

I will become, an abomination,
a symbol of decay—
                        I watch the pale worms

pierce her sternum. & then
there are the flies…