After winter’s thaw, the hollow-pit stomach
blunted with hunger, Phaedra’s first words
char her ears—Let’s go no farther. The wood-smoke
disgusts her. The physician, who kissed her hand
exiting, disgusts her. Too, the torn seam of her dress.
Forgotten lines, disgust her. And in her head she
goes Bright god of fire goes O sun. No, no farther from
heat, grabs her brother’s wrist. She knows night
is an equation of undoing. She does not sleep,
just feels over her body for gracelessness. Injury.
Kinks her fingers inside her self. Does not sleep,
lest the moment, waking, when the sky is still
missing. Has been inside her body too long.
No, farther from the house of diseases and dinners,
of open doors—The world my life degrades. André stops,
points to the bleach-white egg on the side of the road,
questions the intellect of its design. The way it is so
round. He is always pointing out flawed things,
such as men do (By which his pure hand must not be profaned).
This does not disgust her, yet. Just the way the world gets
under the skin and flourishes. She palms the egg,
vulgar thief. Vulgar girl. Later, incubating it
with her young and ungoverned love—I had touched it—
excited by its delicate potential for ruin,
yolk unseen—It is a thing defiled and stained—her
zealot, crushed, she finds it is not alive. Is loaded.