vii. Dante after Bea


The Incinerator:

You write this one, she says,
I'll scavenge from the pit,
make doll-headed gorgons
touting with Beatrice blue eyes
and melt them in the flames.

Thanks!
The Inferno's flames sit there,
are old sofas, table-lamps,
plastic chairs and headless dolls.
You could drown in them,
but not burn
this Inferno's dramatic as a fridge door,
shuts on heat,
is opened cold.

The doll she's got's
the spit of my wife
she'll burn it,
stretch it,stick pins
in its eyes, just watch.

She knows that too
her look says:
Let's stop here Adam,
no need to follow the Tees
back into raindrops
ours would be a new race,
a new Cain, a new Abel
for the banks of the Tees

and she sees me thinking
in terms of silt and chickenwire
how we'd construct and articulate
bones for their fingers,
wind silks for their tissues;
in the Temptress's look
is that uncertainty?