The American Poetry Review

FOUR POEMS

Crazy Sharon Talks to the Bishop

I met the Bishop on the road
and much said he—same old porridge
I heard as a child, my little body
a “foul sty.”

“Love has pitched his mansion.” Maybe
Love pitched her silken tent.
Love has raised its dwelling in
the place of reproduction, which can be

fitted with a full moon device
which functions as a saving grace.
And maybe everything can be rent,
everything can be sole or whole—like an

asshole. I met a Bishop, once,when I was a teenagereternal fire and birth control.We were sitting in my mother’s living room—

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