ANGELA WEI
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