Vandal Poem of the Day

Clothing and weapons set aside, I am simply your thigh, and proof

that underneath the world lies

a warm pool of water overflowing

with drowned blue butterflies.

All these years,

clear up to here:

As you waited, I waited too.

When you were tired,

I lay down with you.

You never noticed,

but now you do. (

boy’s fingers whispering past the hem of your skirt—guess who?)

Guess who.

Sleeve of moony, vaporous voices. The dead ebbing as the living flowed.

The calm milked cows in a field of clover. The long

white fish in a bath. Cellular

shadow on the forest floor. Someone withdraws

a shining sword.

The naked man standing on the deck with his harpoon.

So much water lapping at a mindless shore. So

much spring stuffed into a pale

silk sack.

Or a club

tossed down among the flowers.

I am your memory

of it all, your life, in flesh and hours, statement

and tone, meat and weather

wrapped around a bone.

The Thigh