Beauty and the Beast

American Poetry Review, The, Jan/Feb 1997 by Conoley, Gillian

That the transactions would end.

That the rose would open (her appearance in a Cyrillic blouse),

leaving the sense

that one had reached for it -

dust gray blue green manifold red and torn, his studied performance of a romantic mood.

He is still eating other small beasts.

She is sleeping alone

coiffed in the pleated moments,

only rising to bathe before the mirror

with its grand so what.

But we who have held the book with both hands

and let the syntax shape us

we are not evermore

as mirror or sleep.

In our modern cloven space

events dissolve to the sexual instant,

each of us holding the hairy hand

with thrilling lucidity.

so we never find what we mean

but if flakes off on our hands,

so the pleasures we most desire

go unexpressed,

people of the future will also have

light, fragile conversation

and a hidden cottage with shutters carved,

where each summer we return

with no misgivings, no spectacle -

Nothing to be afraid of.

Only the 16th century air,

making it impossible to breathe more purely.

And she is femaling him

And he is maling her.

And someone says, the end.

And someone says,

no, this is my body.