Epithalamium with Peeping Tom

What's this ring? Not the gold
hinge where the finger turns
away from the hand, floodgate for the vena

amoris, its sluicy
descent from the heart. No,
this ring: hole in the door, my eye a witness

to this mating practice,
all this finery: you,
the eager bird parading around the lek,

your alençon feathers
gathered in tufts, in white
pools around you. And him: his shaggy strut, jut

of his chin. How he glares
at the twin menisci
of your breasts, as though he would bore into them,

his vision an auger,
undoing your body
like a bomb. And who am I, lurking outside,

but a pin-up painted
on the flank of a plane,
a fiancee of death grinning through the gore,

and all around, this dark
frame: a reverse halo,
light winking out at the sight of all this love.

Copyright © 2007 Jennifer Perrine All rights reserved
from The Body is No Machine
New Issues Poetry & Prose
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission