The Antigonish Review 37

Herewith, the latest selection from dusted-off published poetry and short fiction, circa 1970s vintage and beyond....

Inheritors of Priapus

They spend their callow days
dreaming seduction by corrupt
... virgins who after frantic
nights rise again like the
Phoenix transformed by the blaze:

gone through the crucible
of purification to become always
cherished (or is it cherried)
virginal vessels. The dream
grinds on in rushes of aproned

domesticity. Hairbunned
and chaste they sweep daily
the dust of the universe from
dreamers' sacred hearths
keeping banked the fires of

ritual. Little do they know
these dreamers that they play
the game of Vesta. Foxy ladies
glowing burnished hair and
... fingers stabbing diament;

encapsulating in their
webs of careful purpose the
frail design of pathetic Lotharios.
They shuffle the tarot
and whisper chatty of uxorious

boredom. Run fond tongues
over memory of casual misalliances;
lithe acrobatics of
... Vesta's unforgotten temple.

c. 1979 Rita Rosenfeld
published by The Antigonish Review, Spring 1979