– 116 –

Professor at Lunch

He fits like a centaur's
forequarters into his desk,
comfortably fused
to cold mahogany.

Cottage cheese lightly
smeared on pumpernickel
crumbles compliantly
between toothless jaws.

From a blotter ghosted
by copperplate, a set
of teeth spotlit by the sun
beams at the harbour traffic.

Behind his back
the spines of books
bleach evenly, untouched
by hands with nothing

to profess.

– 117 –

Da mi basia mille … ^*

Another eruption
of erudition films
Lesbia with ash.

Five fingers form
the music stand—
a finger of the other hand

gingerly explores
the maestro's halo
of retreating hair.

The young impatiently
await ignition—gazing
skyward he unpicks

the syntax, spots
metrical irregularities,
and chides the slips

of overheated copyists.
The fine ground dust falls
only round the podium—

high in the air
beyond the reach of gravity,
mortality's forgotten

in the meeting of eyes
in the licencing of hands
behind, before, above, between.^**