The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #56732 Message #2598950
Posted By: Joe_F
27-Mar-09 - 08:09 PM
Thread Name: Mudcat Poetry Corner
Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
Epithalamium
A plainclothes imp saw the first second of
a shameless Boston summer love.
Satan blushed and vainly mobilized:
Hell's frontier was compromised.
Up in the universe, everything became
slightly more physical. The same
stuff went on, transfigured by defiance,
just within the laws of science.
Masses of granite kissed each other's faults,
two-stepping quarks took up the waltz,
in a tree's lee, sucking summer heat,
whirlwinds coupled in the street,
crook'd molecules forswore the pentagon,
Don Júan put a condom on,
an ag'd curmudgeon lost himself in lewd
ecstasies of gratitude,
nature turned out a zero-defect freak,
trout held their breath in Boulder Creek,
far from a blazing, basking barley field
the sun exploded and was healed,
shrimp wagged their tails and stirred up the abyss,
English bent itself toward this,
all in a second. There've been eighty million
since: heaven could use a billion.
(1983)