If I were you, I’d be dead by now,
or dying. Dead or dying
without a tenth of the madness
you brought into this world
to craze the rest of us
too fond of lifeless resting.

The day you walked naked
out of a silk inheritance
was the birth of a shameless polygamy
that still makes our prudish hearts
blush white.

All the taboos and fearful intermarriage rules
went out a window opened
forever now to the explosive entrance
of joyful mourning doves.

No one but you—
your flesh a living flattery of bloody imitation—
has better grasped the final agony
of chainsawed elephants.

When I watch you weave daisies
into Clare’s loose curls
I want to shake your pierced hand
in appreciation for its signs of love
so tenderly spoken.