Growth - by Jean Arp

Squigglies.  Buttercups
	bent rain and a marble storm.
 Twisting . Avoiding
	   the squadrons of rosemary flies.
	upside right on the 
			block,
colliding so many tooth like
corners in the niche of a curve:
	buttock
	to knee,
	elbow
	to breast,
  and around behind the shoulder-blade
  and hiding there
The first cycle round, menustration
	to wake to, or the shower.
  Rounding hips, and shedding blood;
     shedding hips, and blood renewed - 
	pencilled underneath the marble skin.
the limpid crevice is at the the bottom.
	What goes round the crooked hook?
  The naked body as stanza,
	line, and half-
beak face out one end and
  gajin hair answers
  holding the waist.

by jonathan stern and josh buermann © 1997