Diane Seuss Biography

No one says Paris anymore.
There's no such thing as Paris, no
Café de la Paix, no Titian's Entombment
in the Louvre or Hotel La Sanguin
...

and not the calf though it licked me with its tongue
covered in taste buds like barnacles. I'd sleep with my head
on its warm side. Pretend to sleep. Pretend to like to be alone
...

but needed to see anyway, they'd put on their work
gloves and grab a bat sleeping upside down in the attic
and hold it still so we'd have to look at its small eyes
...

Fingernail against zipper.
Apple covered in bees.
It's none of my business unless I'm the apple.
...

Not just cawing but full trills, music rising like swells
on a windy ocean, each bird a chip off of some
brilliantly-colored abstraction, beaks gold as trumpets
...