He, hungry and fresh
from the caldarium
and she, smooth and gliding
towards him; both blind
to their Bacchus statue
and fresco walls. Reclining
at noon they bite through
olives' skin. The necessary heart
of the fruit resembles the pupil of your eye.
I stand in the garden
of pantomimes
grown from bodies
casted out of plaster.
Among the ghoulish blooms,
there's a tender clutching
of two. Who, I ask the shapes,
had been feeding whom,
before the final embrace?
Marjorie S. Thomsen
keeps a quote by Charles Simic above her computer: "A poem is a secret shared by people who have never met each other." She was raised in Richmond, Virginia and currently lives with her husband and three children in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her poems have appeared in The Quotable, contemporary haibun, and Halfway Down the Stairs; she was awarded an Honorable Mention in the Lucidity Poetry Journal's 2012 Clarity Contest.