Taming A Sea-Horse Poem by Michael Pruchnicki

I first met the duke and duchess
and the artist fra pandolf in a poem
one muggy spring afternoon
serving detention after school

My boredom gradually wore away
as I forced myself to sit quietly
reading and memorizing
word for word all 59 lines
before reciting it aloud
for the Jesuit up front

That afternoon introduced me
to a gallery of scoundrels and rogues,
friars, priests and smug prelates
who speak with tongues of men,
hearts pumping blood,
red and hot

*If hate killed men, brother,
God's blood, would not mine
kill you! Hell dry you up! *

*While Dolores with Sancicha
steeps tresses in the tank,
blue-black, lustrous, thick like horsehairs*

*And a face looked up...zooks, sir,
flesh and blood, that's all I'm made of! *

*If you get enough beauty and nought else,
you get about the best thing God invents.*

Then and there I decided
that black cassocks
were not for me!