The First Thing I Worked On Later

I like uncertainty. She's not

So rich in it as some. But is she

Short or tall? For something made her

Tower that morning. Such definite pigments.

Stiffie pallida mors whose touch leaves wounds,

Too ready to watch and cautious to act,

And the mouth, if very red, is wary,

Like a once-snared lynx's. But last evening

Some smut, not mine, disordered her sheathed chrome.

Her eyes hardly moved. But her chin, her chin

Wittily shifted like gelatin.