Beauty doesn’t only reside in bodies
but bodies present the strongest evidence
of its presence and cruelty
as it flies away. A million maggots
wriggle the giraffe’s wound. The flood
leaves behind its mud in the lunette.
I’m tired of the real estate agent,
says Beauty, and leaps into the lumpish
baby just as one moves from the walk-through
above the city of singing garbage men
to hear-the-waves-from-here beach shack.
It is true that wherever Beauty goes
it will not stay, but can it be delayed?
Yes. Epoxy. Zipper replaced, neck
adjusted, avoidance of UV rays.
Can Beauty come back when it hath gone?
Yep. After adolescence. Looks at this tree
that was beautiful when its blossoms
twittered in the leftward breeze but 
then went through a bark-scab, leaf-
splotched phase but now is beautiful again
albeit kinda spooky. So you can see
death is no guarantee one way or the other.
The monkey pulls his beard, the tenor
loses his ping, the sports car smashed
to a dot. Faulkner in and out of print.
Bell bottoms. The tree stands on its hunk
of dirt hurtling through the void,
not even holding onto a strap. Dreams
are oblong, squeezed between dark columns.
In the hallways run a hundred children
in blue capes.

= Michael Champlin