classical girltalk
		----------------------------------------------------------

		girl.  irreplaceable relinquished longing
		abandoned to mothering and vexing
		protected by father north east south and west
		left no escape routes, she horses around
		her checkered past -- squeezing open the family zit.

		girl.  implacably rending love
		an entity scented -- always
		finding hope in transparent glycerine soap
		astringents teas and the quickened crispy walks with a dog
		or without

		girl.  in roan leggings (cat hair)
		in blond hair in aquamarine eyes?
		swedish or masai or maori almond brown-on-brown?
		the hot scent of struck flint also rises
		that body part always struck me as a hungry parrot beak

		ancient anatolia boasts helen's olive groves
		contemporary europeans -- the ugliest wars.
		for some free in america the enslaved had the faces
		that launched a thousand ships.  the twice-texas angola
		has one tanker in its ten-ship merchant marine.
		how they must value her -- that creaky stinking tub.

		what would the mutinous renaissance astronomers say
		of nasa t.v.'s one-and-a-half stealth bomber telescope
		glinting in silver over the blue coral sea?  might they
		see the earth with new eyes as the most heavenly place?

		the girl of antiquity is here -- she is my contemporary:
		presence transits -- occulting my garlicky girl who leapt.


			Marek Lugowski
			26 December 1999
			Cincinnati, Ohio