Film shoot. Garden setting.
Woman, several men, nude.
Script in hand, casting director
congratulates the writer's inspiration.
. . . in her eyes iris clusters
& fern-frond lace
& fetish petals
Others?
creative as boulders
but precise in placement
gone from itch
to straight-to hot switch
to be frictionless
gardeners stop to frown
at the purposes put
to their daughter
the director has her
grimace at the camera
past the heads behind
or through the legs
of colts snorting
in specialized ritual
she needed no direction
behind her the garden bursts
moan & breath swaying the vines
she alone is serene, or happy
or wet from attention, serpent
vines taking to the rasp in her voice
scene ripe for corruption & pleasure
but she sees their exquisite eruptions
as poetic incapacitation
they would demystify
commoditize
but her version takes from the gardener's plot
the lily pads in the center pond
reeds with lazy nipples
& bulbs flaccid save spring
floating with the bowed-down
palms, raising their grunts
up to song
& fertilizing every living thing
in the garden with traces of beast
& boys who came & went
come evening she again partakes
of Syrah & Sodom
steps out of queen dowager robes
dematerializes the mass at her feet
writhing into pumice & peat
to thrill her rich dark heaven
October 2011