Lenny DellaRocca

Far Amusement of Statues

Someone in a fear dress comes
with her ruler
to measure the far amusement
of statues
Nickels gleam from rose garden
birdbaths
as the trilluim begin their viola lesson
My mother
wipes the beaks of blackbirds with vinegar
attempting
to order the ambiguous names of their trill
The woman
in the fear dress strikes the ground
with a cherry rod
inflicting the deaf with the sound of rare fruit
and science
The statues rape summer with their long
white gowns
Even the humidity is a grateful thing,
my mother says
The viola urges mythology to sing while
a man in a
sackcloth tapestry orders Aegean Sea
jam
from a waitress with a lawsuit in her hands
The elephants
dance the way they did in Egypt when
Cleopatra
shaved her cunt and let the serpent slide
between her legs
All this for Reason, the sophist sighs,
tomorrow is blind
No matter how independent the police act
they never see
the rows of people writing down the story
Ruined by music
and crime, the woman steals the tongue of Jesus

The line of hypnotists in Buicks honk
their horns
driving past the cafe in bright sunlight
like a huge
glass painting in the streets of Prague
Someone
demands altruism and dogma for Christmas
Taxidermy
is another lost art in Europe,
my mother says
The woman
in the fear dress blames her father for her sins

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The 2River View, 3_3 (Spring 1999)