Crow's Nest

Faint from explanation,

lolling with the ripples,

knowing that being in a

better place means the 

pressure of it only

permits conciseness,

a compact and precise

look at why you ended

up here, not out of

convenience but

because your chances

of divination are

reduced like that,

the family line 

will only impart 

with every skip 

of the stone

on the water's surface.

Judith

The article is entitled 

Judith and Holofernes 

(Donatello) and it’s about

the same length as the statue itself.

I was scrolling for inspiration

since I knew I wanted to do 

something with the gilding, how while

it had once covered the whole of the bronze 

widow-assassin and her quarry,

it now remained only on the blade.

It felt like a layup: something about gold

in the place where the blood would’ve run.

Violence, power, lust, karma.

But I was soon derailed by a misreading

of the final word of the opening bit,

‘topos’ not being part of my everyday

vocabulary, of course, meaning

the story was now a representation

of “The Power of Women tops.”

“Yeah,” I could hear the hero say.

“I guess things got kinda carried away.”

What to do with the gold in that case?

The sword’s too obvious a metaphor.

Something about the gleam of arousal,

a priceless performance, true love

and karma, power, violence, lust.