The hive crowns a queen
                above the humping
                mocking servants

                "I dreamed of heaven
                last night,"
                said Persephone
                to Pluto.

                The scalpel in my mouth
                makes whippoorwills sing.

                As love gets lost
                in the silence of days
                I greet you

                with that mixture
                of hatred and apathy

                the comet feels when it
                defies its tail
                with a peek at the sun.

                There is a baby watching orchids
                brown beside a cypress
                in a cemetery

                on a grave belonging to a mother
                who had two abortions before

                letting it grow inside a carved
                entombment of viscera.

                Scars match playlines drawn
                in chalk beside a canteen

                next to an auburn husk of
                tourist in the graveyard

                south of Arles.
                

Copyright © Juli A.Kroll, 2002.  All Rights Reserved.