The Fine Print (Dido Aeneae)

An arm’s length of [1]

         congregation guilt.

What Juno’s thunder

         christened hands,

slipping under vagrant

         syllables, lifting the hem

of the toothsome hour

         to lips and tongues—

what our vowels

         stole from the gums,

howling. Every memory

         an unwilling mistress,

pressed to the neck, wound

         by the rhythm

of open palms.

         A back, etched

in marble, colliding

         beneath the square

of back-pocket libation

         light. Victor,

victa, the uncertain ax

         falling as a sentence—

dapple— fate.

         Mea amor, why every

sinner leaves, & April,

         bearing thorns,

tastes of soot.

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[1] first line taken from Diabolic by Cornelius Eady