I understand your reluctance at the tightening
of cloth at
conical apples, the green plinths of a potent spring
as pale limbs prick with bristling shoots and
the world’s regard. I understand tightening
of cloth every eye winking. The pleasure
in chestnut hair, virgin clavicle, expansive
hip and modesty.
Pale as sapwood, soft as pine.
Could such purity undertake moss and muscle, the tuft
of grafted hyphenate he — ?
At fifteen you’ve conned the
cartilaginous nub that signifies containment, sufficiency,
genus. But believe me, Juniper, even your
name is slivers of fruit and
a distilled kick.
No. Let you and I be decidedly
copse and presence of insects. We in profusion.