The Seven Deadly Sins

                                from Pieter Bruegel’s copper engravings, 1556—1557

1: Wrath:

She is armored & moving—out from beneath a cauldron
            (crow perched & the naked couple is boiling)

There are knives & swords & more bodies skewered (say female, say fish: sinner)

A man with spurred sandals, keys clacking (he is coming up the stairs,
                                                his fingers blades down there—there, there
                                                                                                                                   there, there—)

2: Sloth:

The bell cannot sound—it is open

            & rusted & its tongue does not knock, does not knock, knock—

It is wrong, it is dirty to do nothing, to want this—this attention—

3: Pride:

The peacock cries ow ow       ow—
                        the woman reflects—it is she there adoring

Birds are hatching their own—the peacock cries       no   no—
                        secrets in the tree house (be a good girl)

The woman gazes into her mirror, does not see the girl impaled on a high branch
                                                            & the peacock: now now now now now—

4: Greed:

Bring me gold (& more scotch & crackers & a kiss, bring me a kiss—)

O, watch it glitter, eternal shine—the girl’s body is suspended, naked,
            bent at the waist—a huge pair of scissors cuts her in half: one, two

5: Gluttony:

She cannot stop herself—

            Stitch me up & fill me again: this is not my body, not—

6: Envy:

What I’d do for your plain face, no shine—: I hide in a basket of wooden shoes & rub them
                                    smooth as teeth —the house is on fire—Say I am
the prettiest—hush, rub it soft again—

7: Lust:

            If I confess to having liked it, will you mock? A sin,

this is a sin, he whispered & took my hand and placed it there—
                                    there, there —

                                                       *            *          *

            If someone else could climb the ladder to my mouth—

An owl perches on my beveled tongue / my eye is a lead-glass window

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