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lazy arch and plane of sandstone
white flaking epidermis
crowned with tarsals
and jutting scapulae
elephant’s toe-bones
the shoulders of deified lovers
stone the colour of bone
bleached and deadly
under a noon sun or
hissing in the soft rain
drinking finite moisture
from the bowl of sky
as the sea carves secret chambers
echoes epitaphs, the hollow
infinity of words
the way a scream at night
mingles with a dog’s bark
the hum of satellites
© Mari-Lou Rowley
from Interference with the Hydrangea, Thistledown Press, 2003
Consider the curve of space
the swell of a breast, the concave
bowl of belly pooling droplets of sweat.
It's as simple as this, Einstein said
think of gravity as geometry, not
a force to be reckoned with.
A body freely falling
through the vacuum of space
would chart a straight line
across the star-spangled night
if not for the mass of flesh rock water earth
curving space-time, holding satellites
and fragments of shuttle
in its nest of orbit.
For the same reason the earth revolves around
the sun, a hand falling through any arc of
air will choose the swelling mass of thigh
over nothing, for warmth
for meaning.
Sex, gravity, quantum theory
are merely the play of
matter and energy, radiating
waves of photons dancing here and there
the pull and swell of bodies
in motion.
© Mari-Lou Rowley
from Viral Suite, Anvil Press,
2004
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