Main      Site Guide    

Poetry Pool


Offer

Delicate, behind a glassy pane
There is beauty, on the one hand, dancing
Pretty as a ballerina in a box
Behind that window, guarded by a chain
And a sign proclaiming: SOLD
Twirling light, and soft, and slow, and chancing
None to pick the locks
Made to admire, but still never meant to hold.
But with it, adding weight
To the offer in the balance drags
The bottom-crawling rise of blood that, having risen, flags
And sleeps a while, until the drive and twitch
That it must sate
Rouse the steaming brute anew
To slaughter and devour its pleasure.
Here beside the ballerina on the balance, which
Begins to groan and tilt
The thick blood sags. And added yet thereto:
A husk of burnt-out passion lately thrown in for good measure.
And therewith is the offer built.

David DeBoe

 


Back to the Poetry Pool.