This poem is taken from PN Review 187, Volume 35 Number 5, May - June 2009.
Two Poems
Judas
St Swithin’s Day,
you kissed me on the cheek
I’d turned
to the luxury of sunbathers
gaggling there to see
if I would vanish
in a puff of holy smoke.
O Adonai,
I vanished in a trice -
root now among the skulls
of that many-headed beast,
a torrid pulse:
discretion’s soul,
so good they damned him twice.
And on the wall
to the hibiscus-kingdom
...
St Swithin’s Day,
you kissed me on the cheek
I’d turned
to the luxury of sunbathers
gaggling there to see
if I would vanish
in a puff of holy smoke.
O Adonai,
I vanished in a trice -
root now among the skulls
of that many-headed beast,
a torrid pulse:
discretion’s soul,
so good they damned him twice.
And on the wall
to the hibiscus-kingdom
...
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