Invite the five women their bodies
Still glowing from their exertions
Let them join again their spontaneous celebration
Link hands and make the joyful round
Each adopt her characteristic posture
Upright or nearly falling
Neither nude nor naked for the fall of man
Has not occured

And why should your accompanists the men
Occupy a separate panel with their pipes
For melody has been invented but not
The world-drenching woe of sexual shame
Invite too the children their simple bodies
Of green and gold and blue and deep purple
And rose and cappuccino

The costume of the painting in which we live
When Hatshepsut afixed the beard of command
Was her rule more humane than that
Of either of the two Tutmoses
Piero’s stubbled penitents must leave their eternity
Pressing unceasingly their palms together
Like a sixties girl trying to increase her bustline

The corpse is richly attired
Reddened her lips
Her rings her sentimental necklace
Solemnly displayed
Incense enacts her immortality
And masks her mortality
Still she joins the dance
At last she drops the pretense of volition