Darby says, fill in the blank.

One: Is.

Atop the balustrade, she is:

casting off
her velvets

christening
her tall boots

chastising
her Age

how laborious her legend.


Two: Renounces.

To the young master’s arms, she renounces:

her tongue
her eye-wells
not merely the Tigris, but the Euphrates

her brood
her metropolis below

Herculean lanterns strung up amidst clement seaports

the microscope and its momentum
her compendium electroencephalography of Jesus
the amethyst smoking orchard.


Three: Offers.

Endearment brackets her body against the hood of the auto.

On his terms, she offers:

her vision
her blessed death
the boy at the gate
the brown rabbit

her well earned Tiara
her quiver and her mark
the aroma of roses
the prospect of orchids

admissions given in confidence to inferiors

her jealous maid
her presence
the sweetness of asylum.


Four: Visions.

On her knees, six million minutes ahead of this particle, she visions:

An ocular disturbance spinning out across the heartland
hollow cavities, fissures
monocoque malfunction
casings of bombs pre-dating their conception.

She undergoes mitosis when he preaches.

He spies her atop the widow’s walk
Sunday, just past sunset.

His ventricles ache with an awareness of their reddening,
fanning out toward the westward smoldering edge.

A locust shell on the wind
his neck snaps
vacating her memory.


Five: Has.

She has swallowed.

Where will be your earth now?

A rainbow on the tile in the early morning sun
a wet, open-mouthed and jeweled sobbing
irredeemably out there, beyond this past.

The sweetness of his body makes her:

a toothache
a boulder
a missile
an arrow in the distance.