A cat scrambles in the cave of my sex
my heart is infested by desire;
Jupiter has been with Leda
and this typewriter is guilty with love.
Electrified with memories of dangerous propinquity
(to my verboten lover, beautiful as allegory) I rise
from this jungled bed, virile as a cobra –
my obstreperous shape of shame a colossus
whose snowy thighs soar, obliviously, out of sorrow.
*
Notes: this is a found poem sourced from Elizabeth Smart’s By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept (1945); image is of ‘Leda’ by Emmanuel Benner, sourced from Wikiepedia Commons.
Michele Seminara is a poet from Sydney whose work is published or upcoming in journals such as Bluepepper, Tincture Journal, PASH Capsual, and Cordite. Find her on twitter @SeminaraMichele.