It has been overcast in Manhattan for four days
I do not run, it may rain, I turn to books
The way I might have, a year ago, turned to a lover and held her
Last night I sat and drank in the Ding Dong
Smoking cigarettes with a Finnish woman
Large breasts, tattoos, body full, hair in two buns
Pink ribbons
She wanted to love in broken English,
I did not take her home

I could have lay in this empty bed this morning
The Bronx overcast, misty beyond, and held her, reading aloud
When she asked
What is...volutpuous
I would have held her right breast firmly and said
Not this
And loosened my grip to a caress
But this
And rolled between her pearl legs and been
Voluptuous to her again
The book trailing under our bodies to be rumpled

Make sense of this all
The overcast
Her Finnish voice menacing and tender and lonesome
Her skinm tattoos, my books
This reticence to accept
A woman dead in Georgia at 30 (31?)
Incense burning in the corner
An invisible city
My best friend's woman, whom I want to take in my arms
A Puerto Rican mother killing herself with cancer in Kansas City
Her daughter hating me in silence

The edifice of the University rumbles to life across the street
On the shelves the ancient characters are silent except to me
"What does mean," she askes "This is not true 'of'?"
It is the genitive use - it means "concerning," "belonging to"
The quality belongs to the thing
If she understood I would only know
By touching words
"Like this," she holds her right breast lightly,
"This is 'of' voluptuous?"
------------------------------
Something like Eldridge
Cleaver meets John Lennon