A Version of Paolo and Francesca

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.