Three Poems

‘… More Instructive than a Long Trip to Europe’
Flannery O’Connor

The wolf, she meant: the lupus.
                                        Which
           we also yoke with butterfly:
                         broad curves across

the cheekbones (finest lesions) and
                                        the narrow bridge
           across the nose.
                         What can I tell you, says

body to soul, to make you understand.
                                        There is
           a system, so exquisite in solicitude
                         for every least

unlocking that sustains you, every atom
                                        scanned
           for friend or foe,
...