No one knew her real name, but she appeared to be Greek.
She posed nude for painters, when she could find them.
She could slap hard enough to draw blood.

September’s lovely in New York, the sky 
Returned to baby blue, the breeze now mild 
As breath, and if you’ve anything at all 

It seems someone else was interested in order, too—
The squat trees edging away down the slope
In wavy lines like rivulets—but wasn’t very good at it.

Everybody has a point of view,
         a public expression when
                all is said and done,

They arrived and were so beautiful, it was sad
They refused to snatch you, too, the aliens.
Teenage warriors resplendent in their fatigues.

I stood by the river where the flesh of our world
Is swept it knows not where (but I knew)
And thought how one day the bottom land

And so we set out calmly into the sky,
Out over sheer space and distant waters

Your little crush on the grotesque did not admit of cure;

Nothing of the son occurred, of course,
not the evil dreams, not the dementia,
neither bovine diet nor bestial appearance,

What compensation shall we say
Confronts a fractured energumen, awaits the devotee of day?