SELF-PORTRAIT
I did not want my body
Spackled in the world’s
Black beads and broke
Diamonds. What the world
Wanted, I did not. Of the things
It wanted. The body of Sunday
Morning, the warm wine and
The blood. The dripping fox
Furs dragged through the black New
York snow—the parked car, the pearls,
To the first pew—the funders,
The trustees, the bloat, the red weight of
The world. Their faces. I wanted not
That. I wanted Saint Francis, the love of
His animals. The wolf, broken and bleeding—
That was me.
—previously appeared with The Academy of American Poets