BY MARISA FRASCA
VERONICA FRANCO’S RANT
When I was a young wife, sugarplum
and corset elegance of primrose,
fresh victim of man-made law, forced
grown
—that garden
of order sacrosanct and deadly
how decorum
turned me bitter rhubarb, then led to my fame—
Poet and Prostitute of Venice—I wish it were not
a sin
to have liked it so
Tell and retell how love once born
of generous sentiment turns
ownership in marriage, and there
it is
face of corruption—hairy tarantula
bedding you in threatening position, crawling
its way up your gut
The man
who once enraptured, now bored me
out of my mind.
What I once called
the act of love became forfeit possession of self
Full with one food I longed to taste another—
how old is the gut’s right to discover—
I stopped chasing divinities of my lawful mate,
charged him with abuse of comfort, too familiar
Not long ago I seduced him with just the sound of my rustling skirt,
of my rustling skirt,
ungloved hand—
Poor guy
he too had been cut off from renewed hunger—
followed the law, and I doubt
he remembered what wild desire was
IN THE READING ROOM
Such fair clouds such inviting light
come in, come in—the curtains are open.
I will stretch out my knees on the couch,
turn to Boccaccio’s third day first story—
to the bars at the door of a convent:
Masetto the gardener gains entrance,
poses as deafmute and deficient in intellect.
Masetto perpetually sexually hard
assures the Abbess he can’t reveal
pleasuring an entire convent of nuns—
such longing in the young nuns—
on the hour, every hour, one goes in
to, one comes out of
the hut in the enclosed garden of love
until Masetto speaks: In God’s name, let me go—
one cock for ten hens is way too much labor.
Still laughing I close The Decameron.
I want to be dressed in more natures
as in Pasolini’s adaptation—his swirl
of villagers, clergy and hustlers vomiting, farting,
their fucking bodies populating
not Boccaccio’s Florence
but Naples’ coarse underclass—
speaking their vulgar jargon
even the young have gaping and broken teeth.
Uncontaminated life—
come in, come in
closer to myself than before
I turn on the desk lamp—set to work—
to that inward flying, to that fugitive poem
that leaves me hungering.
THE MAN ON ECHO LAKE
From the remotest past he sat waiting
under a spruce—one side of Echo Lake
I could easily cross and reach
the man in the land of sleep
Among pine needles gold as the sun
he held out his hand
& I knew
we were twin souls could frisk the sun
Standing on each other’s shoulders we might elevate the skies
we might elevate the skies
There was a boat to take me across—
a beautiful young girl stood beside it
Now then, I said, I will climb on—
slip my panties down—throw them
Overboard, float to him ceremoniously reclined `
like Modigliani’s Nu Couche`
Be sensible, she said—
you’re not sufficiently insulated
Step foot on the boat of trials
& you and he will go blind
If you touch that man’s finger
an explosive will detonate—
Saturn will swallow your children
back in NY. Be reasonable, she said—
By morning this dream
will seem simply ridiculous
Marisa Frasca is the author of Via Incanto: Poems from the Darkroom (Bordighera 2014). She is a book reviewer and board member for Arba Sicula, an organization that promotes and disseminates Sicilian folklore, literature, and the Sicilian language. Born in Vittoria, Italy, Frasca currently resides in Manhasset, New York.