The Wine of Araby
all the lace you've ever seen
in folds along the Seine
somebody bleeds
for every coffee bean
in Yemen
a row of puckered women
wearing bonnets
fingers like toothpicks
a scene from Bergman
lace that stretches
parachute by parachute
over pastures
webbing over bodies
of soldiers
the women bob and dart
like the heads
of Queen Anne's laces
needles in and out
of eyelets
this lace-making
these leaves overlapping
children slightboned,
weaving through meadow
plucking lace for the queen
every Anne
must stop her waving
unlace the laces
begin again
with thread
& sew a web
I was once an Anne
with a clamped face
remember my first lace?
tight tangle
at my entrance
not even your deft fingers
could unchaste
~RJ August 2017
all the lace you've ever seen
in folds along the Seine
somebody bleeds
for every coffee bean
in Yemen
a row of puckered women
wearing bonnets
fingers like toothpicks
a scene from Bergman
lace that stretches
parachute by parachute
over pastures
webbing over bodies
of soldiers
the women bob and dart
like the heads
of Queen Anne's laces
needles in and out
of eyelets
this lace-making
these leaves overlapping
children slightboned,
weaving through meadow
plucking lace for the queen
every Anne
must stop her waving
unlace the laces
begin again
with thread
& sew a web
I was once an Anne
with a clamped face
remember my first lace?
tight tangle
at my entrance
not even your deft fingers
could unchaste
~RJ August 2017
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