Canto 16


I had-- I swear--
the scrofula of Thessaly
under my nails :  memorabilia
of calciferous seas, chipped
horsehair, the hesive sediment
of his blood.
					While Andromache
lay under the battlements, stitching
coral to mother-of-pearl
like any tailor's wife,
							I
calibrated the weight he waggled
onto my sword, the needle
of a meter his own shadow
crushed : seven, maybe
for the fingers
my blade left him, three yokes of
knuckles in the pattering
dirt,
		honor,
				the mating call
of his awful lover-god.