Last Bender

History

First it was the fragment singing

its broken oratorio against

the orotund and fragrant whole.

We were in pieces in the choir

and the ear was thrilled

to hear the opus sung entirely

by vagrant tenors and counter tenors

sopranos perched on swing sets.

Not like sunsets of purple wracks

dragging curtains across the underworld

and rain in another county, rumoured thunder,

our ruins are all we are.  So then

when tapestries began to fascinate

when mosaics murdered random spots

to put a human face back between

the breasts, between the thighs

when the mouth declared

its single syllable of I

and the eye looked at him and smiled

then the curtain parted in the sky

and she was here again

rough hair opened by the lips

snow drops blooming by the gutter

in a patch of sun and water drips.