Of Judith and Inanna

For the accountant, the librarian, on this cold day

there is no revelation. He will go his own way

to the roar of the tinnitus in his ears.

About our war what is there to say. Yesterday

a flock of bluebirds was the only color in the woods.

Have they arrived too early for their good? 

Of Judith and Inanna I have Korf's fears.

Inanna is generous, Judith is dangerous.

On each the wise elders depend for sustenance, 

protection. Agriculture is sexual

and wars end when men remember cunnilingus.

To savor the young woman's thighs and the old one's food, 

to water her womb and cut her wood.

Is this not what's real, the actual, the animal? 

The women I have known were bluebirds and crows, such

nuthatches, cardinals, robins, an occasional thrush.

They did not consider their bodies holy, 

they found my seduction easy. What good luck

on the bed, in the light of the land, in our youth.

Our enemy eventually becomes our brother, 

his misery lifted by coming to her city.