The Wine of Araby

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