After ‘A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed’ by Jonothon Swift

 

 

Sugar granules sink in foam

on a table where Sappho is

 

stuck between pages

preening Ovid’s Amores.

 

A fall happens,

coffee spills on swift shoes,

 

a copy of ‘Men’s Health’

splays on concrete.

 

Behind him, a little black dress

in a window with accessories,

 

gifts, and a stack of books

titled ‘Freedom’.

 

With translation on his lips,

he mouths something

 

about Gulliver, wiping

liquid from the city street.

 

Saying nothing in return,

Corinna picks up her empty cup,

 

cures her hair with a pin

and eyes the messy magazine.

 

Apostrophe driven on bittersweet,

she turns to the sky,

 

O cloudy context fold in,

this battlefield is yesterday’s bleach.