The way he gestures
With supple cruciform flappings
And crossing of wrists in sincerest
Illustrations of his noodle-tight prating
Is sweet to her,
And he could be dappling her neck with kisses
For all the paragraphs of popular paperback wisdom
Cascading over her quizzed face.
In another life he would be
a wrestling Jock,
A smoking Joe with good definition.
And yet in his shaved neck and short temple hair
He looks so convincing
And must be convincing
Leading her out with whole sheets of chow-fun reins
Drawing over her smiling shoulders
And all the saints are safe now,
He's protected them,
He's made his case clear for Jesus and
God knows who.
This may as well be Fernando Po or Goa
And he the shining light
With beansauce eyes
He reels the heathen in, each point by point,
His prayerwheel gaze gets at her soul
Or her hips.
It is a warm pestilent wind eddying in dizzying words
Up and down her silk blouse, knitting her fingers,
Her only defense two sticky sticks
And her thin, shrilly sliced vocabulary,
Carved with care, an ornamental swan-carrot.
They leave, gesturing with warmly grasping
Winglike arms, and they say
The world
is a better place
Because of it.
