Sunflower Encolpion by Mara Adamitz Scrupe
she’s thinking about art
triple tulips/ wiry - stemmed cruciformed & curling splendid
tendrils once traded fever - mad like money
or an exceptionally vivid Dutch tile: two
entwined/ afloat in a flat - bottomed boat or antique
Persian carpets or nakshe/gold - embroidered kantha -
stitched trousers she’d wear/ teasing; a woman brings
the thread to the needle a man brings the needle
to the thread/ she’s thinkingabout ingress & egress/ vents
& voids/ breach & burrow she’s already been
to the so – called sanctum/ delicious done
circus tricks on her back on her tummy/ squalls &
stormsmake her think of that blonde girl’s recital
hiked up in a champagne
shift cello squeezed between her thighs/ tight/ head thrown
back/ecstasy catch & collect
she’s thinking like a petal/ a pistil she is
flower - full / ochre - pollen - smudged density &
emboli but quandary too watching
a woman’s practiced mouth mime suck
(poppet eyes trained on the camera) OR
some heathen goddess painted as odalisque Roman slave
girl dirt scraped from licked skin/ oil
spread on shoulders ‘til they shone (she’s touched
places she couldn’t even see) she thinks
about genus& species of probe
& separate divide & analyze & categorize/ she’s
transient a doppelganger the show - stopper
sunflower Helianthus maximilianis
multi - partnered escapader plundered/ captured
by bandits & helpless she’s learned the Norse for
penalty/ a walk over red-hot iron/ rue &
fetter/ one breaks against the other in fuck - buddy
bedlam her lands denuded her trees burning
pyres she’s learned vindauga =
wind’s eye watching the lens she’s
counterfeit her insides touched encolpion/ her relics
buried deep in a silver - tissue - wrapped
case/ in a scabbard’s chape/ the thin bronze pin
of a belt buckle’s tightening