The Knight Envisions His Lady Poem by James Mullaney

Squatting at a blind creekside railroad lot
rank with the musk of squash bugs and diesel,
daubbing venemous stings with witch hazel
distilled from the leaf in a boiling pot,
spit-roasting pigeons poached from a dovecot,
foraging tubers, trapping a squirrel,
begging with bronchitis in sour drizzle,
lying wide awake on a mangey coat,
I dream you fold down a silk coverlet
on the bed and slip off two satin mules;
a crepe-de-chine kimono falls away
and a manservant bows to retrieve it,
and bows again. You waste no warmth on fools
too grace poor to inhabit volupte.