BY JAN HAAG
POETRY +
ESSAYS +
MUSIC +
TRAVEL +
FICTION +
TEXTILE ART
SILVER MAID
Silver: "A lustrous white, ductile, malleable metallic
element...
having the highest thermal and electrical conductivity of
the metals"
p. 1208 American Heritage Dictionary
5-21-00
Candid maiden bent over
leaning forward
for kicking or shoving
or fucking
or in the worship
of God
Candy Kisses
and a few red
revelatory
attention-getting spots
subtly cheeked
and faceless
Calves drawn taut
hands obliterated
to claws
wisps of blue KISSES
on wisps
of translucence
Chocolate barely showing
as the twisted tin-foil
untwists
un-tempting in its
sheathing of the
female corpse
Composed of candy Kisses
chocolate and silver
shimmering
adorable
pigeon-toed
diving
Concrete leadened
into inflected flesh
pausing
in this world
to decompose
an ear suggested
Clever
or imagined
leaning eternally
belly retracted,
hairy in a glimmering
penumbra
Conceptually crumbling into the lightness of suggested
sweetness, mounted on, reflected in granite, exhibited,
contentious, contumacious, silvery creature of coinage,
commodity ever ceasing. Is your tongue, too, of silver?
Silver bromide, silver nitrate, poisonous images-maker
Choosing to be plated or solid in this world, the next?