I have followed you, model,

in magazine ads through all seasons,

from dead leaf on the sod

to red leaf on the breeze,

from your lily-white armpit

to the tip of your butterfly eyelash,

charming and pitiful,

silly and stylish.

Or in kneesocks and tartan

standing there like some fabulous symbol,

parted feet pointed outward

—pedal form of akimbo.

On a lawn, in a parody

of Spring and its cherry-tree,

near a vase and a parapet,

virgin practising archery.

Ballerina, black-masked,

near a parapet of alabaster.

“Can one”—somebody asked—

“rhyme ‘star’ and ‘disaster’?”

Can one picture a blackbird

as the negative of a small firebird?

Can a record, run backward,

turn ‘repaid’ into ‘diaper’?

Can one marry a model?

Kill your past, make you real, raise a family,

by removing you bodily

from back numbers of Sham?