Then perfidy

                                     for Victor and Lucia Rodriguez

                                            August 1987

She bent impossibly long to his dying

I could look with one eye

at his hand (alive enough to stroke her shoulder)

one of few parts still human to the eye

at his closed face his belly in its dumb

sweetness of skin untouched

I could look with envy

living these specious Augusts

eyes opening on chicane Septembers

while cheated birthdays pass

already in the third recreant year's

cozenage knowing inveigling joy

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