Djuna Barnes




From Fifth Avenue Up

Someday beneath some hard 
Capricious star”
Spreading its light a little 
Over far,
We'll know you for the woman 
That you are.

For though one took you, hurled you
Out of space,
With your legs half strangled
In your lace,
You'd lip the world to madness
On your face.

We'd see your body in the grass
With cool pale eyes.
We'd strain to touch those lang'rous
Length of thighs,
And hear your short sharp modern
Babylonic cries.

It wouldn't go. We'd feel you
Coil in fear
Leaning across the fertile
Fields to leer
As you urged some bitter secret
Through the ear.

We see your arms grow humid 
In the heat;
We see your damp chemise lie 
Pulsing in the beat 
Of the over-hearts left oozing 
At your feet.

See you sagging down with bulging
Hair to sip,
The dappled damp from some vague
Under lip,
Your soft saliva, loosed
With orgy, drip.

spoken = Shelley Lynn Johnson