mercifulserpent

VENUS AT THE BODY OF ADONIS
Detail from Luca Cambiaso's "Death of Adonis" (ca. 1570)





In the field,

she stutters a few crooked words-useless.



No one hears.

The silence wraps her in a wet shawl, the humid dusk.



His body is

red. His legs-hard as felled timbers-no longer needed.



She observes

how simple this reduction is: his skin slowly cools



like fresh bread.

The familiar smell of his sweat, robust and sharp



begins to dry.

She is the only one who will notice this



simple loss.

The shawl closes her in until her breath



breaks free

of the field as fog. She observes loss like a foreign language:



as lame as white noise.

She places her cold hand on his cold skin. She takes in the air



but he is not in it.

She sees now she was doomed to love him this way,



that loss is the smallest currency

of loving.