The only thing worse...End

She lost her maidenhead. It fell into a box of conjurer's tricks, and was never seen again though all in the kingdom searched and searched for it.

A prize of gold was offered.

No one ever got rich that way.

*

In her early thirties; after love had walked away with a beautiful wealthy young woman, whose hair hung like a straight shining black river down her back, and whose skin was Oriental ivory in color, and whose triumph at the capture of her friend’s wild husband was unmistakable; a man named George, who loved her well, came by to commiserate, and to cut off her long hair.

The hair fell soundlessly in thick wavy coppery clusters onto the wood floor, while she waited in silence, not looking down, as instructed by George, who was wiser than many.

*********

In the time it takes a glistening fish to leap from the water, arc gracefully, and plunge into the sea again, many terrible things can happen.

Or, a water lily can begin to open.

It’s the luck of the draw.

*********

Algunas Bestias
(Some Beasts)

*

By Pablo Neruda

*

It was early twilight of the iguana.

*

From his rainbow-crested ridge
his tongue sank like a dart

into the verdant land,

the monastic ant-heap was melodiously

teeming in the undergrowth,

the guanaco, rarified as oxygen

up among the cloud-plains,

while the llama opened candid

wide eyes in the delicacy

of a world filled with dew.

The monkeys wove a thread

interminably erotic

along the banks of dawn,

demolishing walls of pollen

and causing the violet flight

of the butterflies from Muzo.

It was the night of the alligators,

pure and pullulating night

of snouts above the ooze

and from over the sleep-drenched bogs

a dull sound of armor

fell back upon the original earth.

The jaguar touches the leaves

with his phosphorescent absence,

the puma runs on the foliage

like all consuming flame

and in him burn

the alcoholic eyes of the jungle.

The badgers scratch the river's

feet, scenting out the nest

whose throbbing delight

they'll assail red-toothed.

And in the depths of great water

the giant anaconda lies

like the circle of the earth,

covered in ritual mud,

devouring and religious.

*********

Beware the anaconda.
A. Murray—August 26, 2004