Giles Corey’s Six Stones

 

 

The first stone cow-head, heavier than Albert’s prize pig, crushes the delicate archway of ribs

            like a clutch of eggs.

 

Then the horseshoe push to the legs; Martha’s lilies, pressed between pages in the bible.

 

They lean over me, the womens’ heads wrapped in white like wounded things, a dark bruise

            of hat above each man.

 

On my groin that terrible, beautiful body of a woman, skin grey with cold, rigid with want.

 

Against my heart, God’s hard eye.

 

The blue-veined bird settles on my chest and I learn to love its wicked beak.

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Sin

 

At night, your crime crawls into bed with you,

licks the bare joint of your shoulder,

presses her eye to the grave of your heart—

flutters an eyelash there.  You stroke

the stump of her arm, where the flesh

folds over like an envelope, run your nose

over the delicate singed skin of her armpit.

Slowly you pull her between you

and the other body in the bed.

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