A Version of Paolo and Francesca

By Peter Balakian
Paolo

It was not Virgil you read
(though I asked you to), but the Peruvian,   
part Indian, part cousin of Lorca

whose words were spiky points,   
wafts of privet, week-old cod.

When you breathed them at me   
nothing in the outer world ceased   
its turbulent grim direction.

You breathed on my unhooked   
eyes and uncovered me.

Above the roof a windfucker smacked   
the air,
and wind kept eating the island rocks.


Francesca

We ate along the riverside at sundown.
The clear green juice dripped from my mouth.

We didn’t fuck missionary on clean sheets.   
I lost my head between your legs.   
My nose spreading like honey.

A whiff of narcissus swept across us.
I ate the flowers whole, tried to outfox   
Satan with my tongue.

I felt as if I shimmied up your legs to find   
this point on the Jersey cliffs.   
The sun was God’s eye.

I plugged my ears so I wouldn’t hear your crappy verse,   
then tore into your pants like a scared cat.

The Chrysler Building was a pin.   
I tasted you five hundred feet   
as the Hudson pulled me under.
Copyright Credit: Peter Balakian, “A Version of Paolo and Francesca” from June-Tree: New and Selected Poems 1974-2000. Copyright © 2001 by Peter Balakian. Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
Source: June-tree: New and Selected Poems (2001)