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Beatrice
- The University of Akron Press
- Chapter
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30 Beatrice My first Beatrice vanished around a corner on a tandem bicycle in the snow. My second did everything a nineteen-year-old male hadn’t yet known to want & now wears an onyx mussel shell pendant & heals in the name of Jesus. If a Beatrice can have black hair, my third wore a permanent pea coat. It was cold that spring. Dante may eschew possessive pronouns in the vicinity of Beatrice, but not me. Mine are all mine. I hold a photograph of—which one are you? Ah, the willowy one in Washington. Polka-dot shift in a June breeze outside the tapas restaurant. Good wine. Nibble these little things & breathe the aroma of Paradise. I will, thank you. I want nothing from you but exaltation. Avalon is everywhere & sometimes I not only believe that but don’t think about it. I’m forever flat on my back on a creek bank outside Austerlitz, New York. That Beatrice exacted a fearsome price paid with a gladsome, flayed heart marinated for three days in lemon juice, antifreeze & a pint of honey Kabir himself slathered off the desert combs. What a feast! Spain in August it wasn’t, but I swear I whiffed grilled anchovies in the humid murk under the hemlock. Streak of white in shoulder-length ringlets. Halvah crumbling off fingers at midnight. When you’ve cruised the avenues of Valhalla in a jacked-up Chevelle, how could it be otherwise? Oh, hello! Which one are you? Ah, the one with the brown pin-curls who asked, 31 “Would you like a pizzelle?” Oh my yes, but only if you always pronounce it with that little lisp. The mountain is so green this morning. I can imagine the lupine. The blue butterflies. My beauties, I believe I’ll hike up & meet whomever I meet, or none. ...