Of Pears and Swine, and All Things Before she unfolds the mirror into a triptych paints herself onto it spread out a baby bird frozen in her motion she knows not the price of flight     the sun too close set to wrinkle untested flesh a voluptuous grape becomes a wizened raisin knowing too much perfection is a mistake knowing her inheritance is negligible without the wind grounded in this beautiful bower where the cool relief of shade always ebbs – a shy lover     when her breath darts like this excitedly – the way a child breathes while dreaming her rib cage collapses like an accordion after a fitful tango her tiny breasts have Bosch beaks and seem out of proportion with her frame which yearns to have its flames smothered     there’s a song sewn in her ear it taps her tin cochlea she sighs deeply then tells me another poetaster is in love with her eyes as she adjusts her merkin which she says reminds her of said poetaster’s goatee and I’d agree if lice and crumbs were found squirreled up in it – dead fruit flies     there’s a grain king from the plains he’s never seen the sea at night or his mother naked through a bright keyhole he’s offered her a ring or something     there’s a lute she has never played propped up against her vanity it aches to say something true to be of use – to know her touch there’s a bucket of ice beside the bed it snaps and loses its shape     I’d love to give her a baby sire a child that could communicate with the dust which never replies to my questions though I keep asking     it’s times like these when her tears pool up all pregnant fall in garlands of pearls letters from some forgotten alphabet descending without a sound until they leave her face and stitch the eager barrow all pretty-eyed and hopeless at her feet always at her feet which stink like the garden and all the things she buried there. © William Crawford