TORSO MADRIGAL

8 9 R T O R S O M A D R I G A L L I S A R U S S S P A A R I admit I pine for it, the belly vulnerable & all that goes with that pagoda hall, shoulder to hips, a sweet disclose of brute my nose traces like stock lineage to its root. Torso whose root is in the Latin ‘‘thyrsus,’’ stalk, trunk, so in my night-dreams vegetus, obviously a tree is never just a tree. Why should this matter to anyone but me, except the heart it houses feeds a watershed. Not just literally. Please, watch your head I might say to me, mentally tracking the route I’ve just conjured, & not just for me – resolute, displaced by lust – but for you, those my claim on him forgets. And not for us, the altar set aflame. ...